Home 'Til It Brings You There
by mccob
Summary: AU story. It ain't pretty when you turn down love. What happens when Zoe says no, and what it takes to bring Zade back together.
1. Chapter 1

A/N - Please read author's note at the end of this story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie.

Ch. 1

Wade remembered back in high school they showed an 'educational' film about slaughtering cows, and just before they do the deed they pop them in the forehead with a jackhammer, BAM, and the cow drops to its knees. He'd been feeling like that all day, ever since Zoe came to say goodbye, just like a hydraulic hammer had hit him right between the eyes and he was still numb from the blow, but he knew it was going to hurt like hell later. Which sort of explained Wade being out in the woods with his pup tent, his fishing gear, and a bottle of Wild Turkey.

He still couldn't believe how fast it happened. He had been sitting at home on his day off, he had told Lemon he just needed some time and he wasn't coming in today, and was idly strumming his guitar when he heard a car pull up outside the gatehouse. He waited until he heard someone coming around the corner before yelling, "Door's open, come on in."

His heart nearly stopped when Zoe walked in. He had no idea she was coming, and he broke into a big smile as he set the guitar aside and made to get up to greet her. She held up a hand.

"Don't get up, Wade, I can't stay."

He sat, his heart now racing. She made no move to come any further into the room, but stood just a step or two inside the doorway with the door still open.

"Doc?"

"Wade, I've thought about this and thought about this and thought about this some more, I've gone over it and over it. I can't do this." Zoe gestured around the room. "I can't do this with you, I can't do that," she gestured with her other hand outside, "without hurting people. I can't stay in Bluebell…" she stopped, her eyes filling with tears, "I'm arranging with a lawyer in Mobile to sell my half of the practice, either back to Brick or someone else if he chooses. I'd have George do it, but…"

"Doc, what are you saying?" Wade began to feel like a cartoon character suspended over a canyon, he hadn't fallen yet because he hadn't seen how far down it was.

"I'm saying, Wade, that I'm going back to New York. For good. I clearly don't fit in here, and I can't stay here with you here, and this is your home. I really thought we had something, Wade," Zoe stopped and wiped a tear away, "but I just can't go back. I know you said you loved me, but you hurt me, Wade, that was the one thing you knew I couldn't forgive. I won't risk that again."

And she was gone. Got in her rental and drove back to Mobile. BAM.

Wade vaguely remembered calling Lemon at the Rammer Jammer and telling her he was going fishing for a couple of days, so don't expect him, and she growled a little bit but then told him to have a good time. An hour later he was fishing for his dinner in the lake and starting in on the whiskey.

By now the sun had set and the fire was burning brightly. He'd gathered enough wood when he was sober so he wouldn't have to worry about bears, so he just sat and stared into the fire, trying to sort out how he felt. Now there's a new experience, Wade m'boy, he thought. He felt like he had been dropped from a great height, and was still falling. He felt an incredible loss, as if the world was shrinking away from him. He felt some anger, although he quickly felt guilty for being angry at Zoe, but mostly he felt his stomach churning sometimes to the point where he could hardly breathe. Whiskey helped, a little. He took a small pull.

"She just made up her mind and did it," Wade said aloud to the fire. "Didn't give me a chance to get a word in sideways, just, boom, 'Wade, it's over', boom. That's cold."

He sat and stared a while. He took a pull on the bottle.

"All summer," Wade shook his head. "What am I gonna do now?"

"Hellooo!" said a voice coming up from the lakeshore.

"Hellooo!" Wade responded, sliding the bottle back under the bedroll in his tent. Might cause trouble with the game wardens, if it was a game warden.

A blacker shadow loomed up out of the general darkness and approached the fire.

"Didn't want to scare anyone," the woman said, for indeed it was a woman, a young looking black woman with graying hair and a gray streak on the right side of her head. "Mind if I sit down and orient myself by the fire?"

Wade smiled and waved his arm as if unrolling a red carpet.

"Grab a seat."

"Thank you kindly, sir, name's Clarissa.," the woman said as she sat down cross-legged by the fire and unwrapped what looked like a black shawl from around her shoulders.

"Name's Wade," he said, looking her over. She didn't seem threatening; she seemed pleasant, although for some reason he couldn't quite make out what she was wearing.

"Oh, I know you, Wade Kinsella," the woman said with a smile.

Wade looked at her askance and half closed one eye so he could get a real drunk's eye view.

"I b'lieve you have me at a disadvantage," Wade finally said. He thought she looked somewhat familiar, but he was pretty drunk and he could be wrong.

"Yes, I probably do," Clarissa smiled widely. "I know you, I know Jesse, I know your daddy. I knew your mama."

"You did?" Wade asked.

"I surely did. Lovely woman, your mama, so sad."

"How did you know her?"

"Child, I know everyone around these parts, been here my whole life."

"Yeah, me too," Wade sighed, leaning back onto his backpack.

"Yeah, I know you, all right. I know you well enough to know you got a bottle of whiskey over there in your bedroll. Care to share a hit?"

A little startled, Wade sat up, but he found her smile so warm he just reached back, got the bottle, and passed it over.

"Sure, Clarissa, is it?"

She nodded as she uncorked the bottle, took a swig, and closed her eyes for a moment as she swallowed, then took another swig before handing the bottle back. Wade took a hit as well before re-corking it and setting it by the fire.

"I also know you're broken-hearted," Clarissa said emphatically.

Wade just looked at her.

"I know someone important has left you," Clarissa said as she leaned toward Wade and the fire, locking eyes with him. "I know your soul has been shattered, I can see the ruins in your eyes." Wade didn't say anything, but he began to lose himself in Clarissa's big brown eyes, eyes that reminded him so much of someone else, eyes that he could dive into and swim around in like jungle pools, and his stomach began to clench and he had to look away into the fire.

"I can feel your agony," Clarissa whispered, still staring at Wade, who just avoided her gaze and uncorked the bottle for another swig, "but it will be all right, my child."

Wade snorted. "No it won't."

"Yes it will," she laughed, "just be patient, it will be all right."

"Patient," Wade repeated dumbly.

"And courage," Clarissa said, "you'll need courage, but then, who doesn't?" She laughed softly and shook her head.

"Courage?" Wade sneered as he handed her the bottle.

Clarissa nodded sharply once, took a small sip, handed Wade the bottle, and spit the whiskey into the fire. The fire went 'whoosh', and before Wade's eyes cleared from the flash, he heard her whisper "You can't stop the magic." When Wade could see again, he saw she was gone.

Wade shook his head as if to clear it, then took another hit off the bottle. Well, that's the capper, he thought, first Zoe throws him away like a used Kleenex and now he's talking to people who aren't there, and worse, they're talking to him. He took a look around as best he could to see if he was alone, threw another log on the fire, and crawled into the pup tent, thinking that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow might make a little more sense.

As Zoe drove back to Mobile, she began to have second thoughts almost immediately, as she was pretty sure she would. She had argued with herself all summer, trying to figure out what she felt, and for whom. She was pretty sure her feelings for George hadn't changed that much since she first saw him, but to practically declare her love for him (while not actually using the word 'love') when she knew he was involved with someone else, that was just selfish. And then Wade, out of the blue like that, saying he loved her, Wade, of all people. Touching him, even thinking about touching him, was electric. She had never experienced anything like making love with Wade. And it wasn't just sex, she knew that. It had stopped being just sex almost immediately, and became almost a religious experience, which always made Zoe smile because she had never been a particularly religious person, but she did think making love with Wade was as close to heaven as she was going to get.

And yet, she said to herself, it just wasn't enough. She wasn't enough, Wade had made that clear when he cheated on her. Their differences were just too great. She couldn't even imagine Wade in New York, his good ole boy charm, his jeans and flannel shirts, would tag him as a redneck and that's all people would see. Zoe would find herself explaining over and over what she was doing with a redneck, and how would that look to her doctor friends? Although, who was she kidding, she hadn't made any friends this summer while in New York, but still, Wade and New York just wouldn't mix. Just as Zoe Hart and Bluebell didn't mix.

Zoe knew saying good-bye to Wade would be the hardest thing she would probably ever do, but deep down she knew she had to do it. Her faith had been broken and it couldn't be put back together again, no matter how much she wanted it to. Sure, Wade said he loved her, but wasn't that what guys said who had messed up badly? The hurt and betrayal had overwhelmed her, and she knew she needed a fresh start, so she had decided just a quick trip to Bluebell, say her good-bye, then back to Mobile for the next flight out. She figured if she did it quickly, she would at least be able to get through it. Zoe was pretty sure if she sat down to talk to Wade, she'd just end up in his arms, back where she started, and while she might be happy now, she'd regret it later.

As Zoe pulled into the rental lot to drop off the car, she began to feel the finality of what she was doing, and her heart crumbled. She braked to a stop, rested her head on the steering wheel, and sobbed. Deep, heart-broken sobs, her whole body shaking. Without thinking, Zoe reached into her purse, pulled out her phone, and hit Wade's speed dial. She just couldn't do this either, she thought, my God, he loves me, how can I do this?

The phone rang and rang and didn't go to voice mail. After the twentieth ring or so, Zoe's sobbing had subsided and she hung up the phone. She didn't even know for sure what she would have said if Wade had answered, but she had a feeling that she might just have reversed course and told him she'd see him in an hour and it was all just a huge mistake. That's it then, she thought. He doesn't answer. He's gone. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, grabbed her overnight bag, got out of the car and walked into the airport.

As Zoe got to the gate, she presented her boarding pass to a flight attendant, a pleasant young black woman with gray frosting on her hair and a gray streak on her right temple, who wished her a pleasant journey and a safe trip back.

Zoe smiled sadly. "I don't think I'll be back."

"Oh, you never can tell," the woman said cheerfully, "sometimes you don't find home 'til it brings you there."

As Zoe got herself settled in her seat on the plane, she thought 'what an odd thing to say'.

A/N - OK, I have a BIG problem with this story. I have written about half of the second chapter, I know most of the major incidents, I know how it ends, and I can promise you a happy ending, or at least a poignant ending, but the in-between parts are very dark. These are two halves of a whole trying to make it without each other, so you can guess how that's going to go. If you have read my other stories, you know I'm a little off-kilter, but there was a comic tone to those that will be missing in this story. Perhaps a good example would be "What You Deserve" by jessalyn78, which if you haven't read it is an excellent story, and some difficult subjects are handled beautifully. While there will not be any violence or sex (well hardly any, just some intimations), this story has the potential to be darker than that. Most of the stories here are light-hearted romance with angst thrown in, this will be heartache, misery, and suffering, and could very well take HoD fandom out of its comfort zone. We all love ourselves some Zade, so I'm leaving it up to you, I don't want to write this if everyone hates it and refuses to read it. I'm serious, either review it or send me a PM, let me know what you think. Give 'er the old thumbs up or thumbs down, and thanks for reading this far.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the kind words from the reviewers. OK, here we go.

Disclaimer: Me no own.

Chapter 2

When Zoe arrived in New York that night, she grabbed a cab to her Queens apartment, walked in the door and flopped on her couch without even taking off her coat. She got up to double bolt the door and looked around for something to drink. To say this was one of the worst days of her life would be an understatement. She wanted to think of Wade as a car accident she could just drive by swiftly and not take in the details as she moved past to a new destination. She wanted to think of Wade as a detour in her career path. She wanted to think of Wade as a mad fling she would soon get out of her system with work, or with another lover, but the problem was she was thinking of Wade. That, Zoe thought, is what she needed to do first; stop thinking of Wade. Some sort of action was required.

"Get a drink, get to work," she said out loud, so she took off her coat and hung it up on the coat tree by the front door, a steal at $90 she thought to herself, and went over to the liquor closet, which was disappointing. There was a nearly full bottle of crème de menthe, half a bottle of dry vermouth, and a three quarters full bottle of generic vodka.

"Generic vodka breath," she said laughing, then suddenly tears. "Oh, crap, please tell me I'm not doing this!"

Zoe wrung her hands in front of her as if they were wet and tried to calm her breathing. After a minute or two, she felt a little more normal.

"Well, martinis it is then," she said, grabbing the vodka and vermouth and setting them up on the counter. She reached up and pulled down a glass pitcher for her martini making set she had bought at Macy's over the summer. She expertly poured in the ice (not too hard or fast, the glass is delicate), threw in a few glugs of vodka and half a glug of dry vermouth, and then swooshed it around with the glass stirrer provided. She had often wondered, at moments like this when she was making martinis, what good that glass stirrer was for anything EXCEPT making martinis. It was highly refined, an elegant tool, and designed to do one thing only. Much like myself, she thought. I am a doctor, I can't do relationships, I need to focus on what I do best. Right now, she thought, the best thing I can do is take a drink, as she poured her first into a large martini glass which also came with the set. She didn't have any green olives, but she did have those big black Greek olives, and she thought they looked very dramatic in the glass, although she didn't like the taste as much.

"Maybe some music," she said out loud. She walked over to the stereo on the wall and put on a classic country station she had become fond of during the summer, in periods when Wade was in the ascendant. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was playing, and she lurched back to the radio and switched stations to classic rock. Some song by Tom Petty, crap, one of Wade's favorite bands. She hit the button for the classic station, just classic classic, Beethoven, Mozart, there couldn't be anything there to remind her of Wade. She heard the opening chords to Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man", which Wade had once said sounded pretty good and he thought it was real nice that those smart guys in the long hair were thinking of people like him. She turned off the radio, apparently there was a conspiracy afoot to have everything on it remind her of Wade. Since music had only recently become a regular part of Zoe's life, she didn't have a big collection of CDs, but she determined to look through them later once she had run through the apartment removing all traces of Wade. She threw back half the martini and set the glass down on the end table, careful to use the coaster.

She had already put Wade's picture by her bedside into the drawer. That had gone some time ago, in an effort to make things easier on herself. She now went into the bedroom, opened the nightstand, and took out the framed photo. Just a generic picture of Wade, nothing special really, him sitting under a tree with a long piece of grass with a tassel on the end hanging from his mouth, a lopsided grin on his face, tank top, jeans, work boots. Wide shoulders, strong arms. God, she shivered, he could be a poster boy for anything and I'd buy it.

"OK, OK, Zoe," she said aloud, waving her hands at her sides as if to tamp down emotions, "this is exactly why you're doing this." She took the picture out of the frame and put the frame back in the drawer. She turned and went back into the living room looking for anything that reminded her of Wade. She found a couple of pictures, one that she stopped and stared at for a long time. It was her and Wade on Christmas in Bluebell, a picture of them smiling at each other, just bathing in each others eyes, when they were really happy, before Wade killed them. Zoe looked around to see where she had left her martini, found it, grabbed it, and emptied it. She took the pictures out of their frames and added them to the pile on the coffee table. There were a couple of knick knacks Wade had given her that went into the pile as well. When she was done she put them all in a plastic shopping bag, tied a knot in it, and threw it down the incinerator chute. She then went over to the pitcher of martinis and poured herself another drink.

"Clothes," she said out loud, tilted her head back and downed half her drink again, set the glass down, and went back in the bedroom. She found a couple of Wade's flannel shirts that she had somehow been left in a charge of and brought them out to the living room, where they also went on the coffee table. She got her drink and stared at the shirts for a few minutes, debating whether to donate them to Goodwill or just burn them in the building's incinerator. The incinerator won, since it was so much easier, and Zoe went over and dropped them into the chute without even bothering to wrap them in a bag.

"There, I think that's it Wade, I think you're gone," Zoe said as she finished off her martini and gazed blankly at the chute door. She turned and went back to the kitchen area for her pitcher, and poured herself another. She was feeling mellow now, she was keeping sadness at bay, and she had an idea for music. She got out the boxed set of Frank Sinatra her mother had given her last year, a collection of live night club performances in Las Vegas over the years, put them on in order, and sat back down on the couch.

She didn't know much about Frank Sinatra, but she loved the sound of his voice, and her mother thought he was the best ever, so she bought Zoe the collection in an effort to broaden her musical horizons. Candace Hart had always thought Zoe a little deficient in the music department, since she had never had time to listen to music when she was a student, which had been most of her life. It was only in the past couple of years, with…

Zoe got up from the couch, went back to the kitchen and got the pitcher of martinis. The pitcher also went on the coffee table. Zoe went to the stereo and turned up Frank and went to the wall switch and turned down the lights. She went back to the couch, grabbed a throw pillow, and put it behind her head. She leaned back, sipped her martini, and fell asleep trying to think of absolutely nothing at all.

Wade awoke in a fog, literally. It was light out, the fire had died, but it was gray. Fog had descended on the lake, and the wind was still. Wade crawled out of the tent, staggered over to the edge of the woods, and vomited. He straightened up slowly. His eyes were barely slits as he took in his campsite, a little human speck on the vast canvas of the wilderness, and, with his head pounding, he stripped off his clothes and ran into the lake. When he got up to his waist he dove in and let the shock of the cold water ripple through him, stirring his blood to rush to his head and, if there was a merciful God, explode. There wasn't today, and he surfaced unharmed but with his eyes open now, full of passion.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed as he started to swim back to shore. When he got to where he could stand up easily and swing his arms, he began to pound the lake with his fists as if it were the enemy.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed again, pounding and kicking at the water. He kept this up as long as he could, maybe three minutes or so, when he finally fell to his knees in the shallows. Breathing heavily, he stared blankly at the little wavelets as they washed up on shore.

After a few minutes of staring, just contemplating the movement of water over sand and pebbles, Wade finally raised his eyes to the rest of the world. It was too foggy to see across the lake, the sky was a uniform gray, and he had no impulse to do anything. He couldn't think to do anything, in fact, Wade realized, he had a problem thinking right now. What am I supposed to do now, he thought. What advice would I give to a buck naked man kneeling in a lake like a mental patient? With a huge hangover.

"Get dry, get dressed, get out of here," Wade said out loud, and he stood up gingerly and walked ashore, grabbed his clothes, and began breaking camp. Within a few minutes he was dressed, the tent and gear packed away, and he was on the road back to Bluebell.

Wade had left his watch at home, as he always did on fishing trips. This was a lesson he learned as a boy, when a new watch he had just gotten as a present slipped off his wrist under the cold water, so it wasn't until he got in the car that he saw it was already midmorning. He decided he might as well head directly to the Rammer Jammer and face the music, the town was probably already abuzz about the good doctor leaving, and he needed food, which he did not have at his house. They've also got enough whiskey, he thought.

When Wade got inside, he found the place…normal. It was before lunch, so it was quiet, but still no one was rushing up to him with tears of sadness, or a look of sympathy, or a pie. Some of the regulars smiled and nodded as he walked up to the bar, but it was just another day as far as they were concerned. Wade sat down at a barstool and Cody walked over.

'Hey, boss, you OK? You look kind of peak-ed," Cody said.

"Rough night last night," Wade smiled weakly. Cody just nodded, having heard that line hundreds of times he assumed it was Wade and his women, even though he hadn't seen Wade with a woman since Dr. Hart left last spring, but he just knew it had to be something like that because the evidence was right there in front of him.

"So, Cody, could you bring me a big glass of orange juice and two Tylenol, no, three Tylenol, get 'em out of the desk drawer in the office. Thanks."

Wade folded his hands in front of him on the bar and stared at the floor. OK, now what do I do, he thought. He waited for inspiration. In the meantime, Cody came back with the orange juice and painkillers.

"Too late for breakfast?" Wade asked with a grin as he looked up at Cody and downed the pills.

"Never for you, boss," Cody grinned.

"Well," Wade drawled, "maybe we can persuade Charlene to rustle me up some scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, white toast."

"Sure thing, boss," Cody said and took off to the kitchen.

Wade took his time with the juice, he was fussy about orange juice and this was good, and debated with himself about coffee. Should he have it, should he not, should he get it himself, should he wait for Cody to get it, did he really want coffee. He found it difficult to make a decision, so he just waited until Cody came back out. Wade glanced at the pot behind the bar, and Cody took it as a request for coffee, so he got Wade a cup and poured it.

"Thanks, man," Wade murmured as he returned his gaze to the floor. If he didn't have to look up so much he wouldn't get quite so dizzy, so he just closed his eyes and waited.

Soon enough his breakfast was there, and he devoured it like a starving man. He was starting to feel human again, Wade thought, as he sipped his second up of coffee and thought about having another orange juice. Still couldn't make up his mind, though.

Finally Wade made a decision. He got up from the stool and started toward the storeroom, passing Cody on the way.

"If anybody needs me, I'll be in the office," Wade said, "but don't need me."

Wade snagged a bottle of Jack Daniels from the storeroom before heading to the office, where he was surprised to find Lemon sitting at her desk. He closed the door. Lemon looked up.

"I know," Lemon said. "Daddy got a letter from Dr. Hart yesterday. I'm so sorry, Wade."

Surprised by Lemon's presence, and her concern, Wade was left speechless, one hand waving aimlessly as if to indicate 'no big thing', the other clutching the bottle. He sat down at his desk heavily.

"I am truly, deeply sorry, Wade," Lemon said as she scooted her rolling office chair over next to Wade's, where she took his free hand in both of hers. "Just let me know what you need, I will do it or get it done."

Wade smiled wanly and nodded, setting the bottle down on the desk. Lemon eyed the bottle warily, then gave a little nod and got up and went to the bar for two glasses. She came back, closed the door again, and Wade poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into each glass. They clinked.

"To forgetfulness," said Wade.

"To life," said Lemon, and they both drank, Lemon taking a little sip and letting it roll over her tongue, Wade just throwing it back. He growled as it went down, then poured another.

"Someone's got to work today," Lemon smiled.

"Don't think I'm up to it, Lemon," Wade said as he gazed absent-mindedly at the whiskey in front of him.

"Then why are you here? Why don't you go home where you won't embarrass yourself?"

Wade shook his head. "Can't go home."

"Why not?"

"Just can't. Can't do it." Wade shook his head again as if Lemon was disagreeing with him.

Lemon sighed. "OK, but stay in the office with the door closed and don't come out unless you have to pee or throw up. Stay away from the front of the house. No one knows about Dr. Hart yet, I don't even think she told Lavon. You can stay here and no one will bother you."

With that, Lemon stood up, threw back the rest of her drink, grimaced, and set the glass down with finality. She walked over to Wade and put her hand on his shoulder.

"It'll be all right, I know it will. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will be all right. I have had my share of disappointments, but I am living proof there is life after love," she concluded with a confident nod of her head. She waited a beat to see if Wade would insult her, but he didn't, he just looked up at her with bloodshot eyes and tried a weak smile.

"Be patient, you just need time to heal," Lemon said, patting his shoulder as she left the room.

Patience, Wade thought as he took another swallow of whiskey, where have I heard that before? He couldn't quite remember, but he was pretty sure it was recent.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Hart of Dixie no own I.

Ch. 3

Lavon walked into the Rammer Jammer and spotted Lemon over by the open end of the bar near the kitchen door. He walked over slowly, giving Lemon a chance to bolt if she wanted to. She looked up, saw him, and didn't bolt. She just waited.

"Lemon."

"Lavon."

"How's Wade?"

Lemon nodded to the other end of the bar, where Wade was sitting hunched over a cup of coffee as if he could divine its secrets if he just waited long enough.

Lavon sighed. "Talk to you later, Lemon."

"This is the first time he's been downstairs in three days."

Lavon raised his eyebrows at Lemon, nodded once, and strolled down the bar to sit next to Wade.

"What's this I hear about you moving out of the gatehouse?"

"I'm not moving out of the gatehouse, I'm just moving in here," Wade said softly, without taking his eyes off his coffee.

"You asked Annabeth to go over and get your clothes." Lavon wasn't asking, he knew Annabeth had gotten Wade some clean clothes and brought them over to the Rammer Jammer. He knew because he wasn't too happy about it at the time, and he and Annabeth ended up in an argument over the limits of friendship when it came to Wade Kinsella, although they had since made up, and Lavon was still smiling inwardly at the memories of their making up lovemaking, so he was no longer angry with Wade.

Wade simply nodded.

"So what is that if not moving out of the gatehouse?" Lavon asked.

"I don't have much choice," Wade said, looking up at his friend for the first time. His eyes were bloodshot and haggard.

It was Lavon's turn to be quiet. He looked at Wade askance and didn't say anything.

"I can't go out," Wade said simply.

"What does that mean?"

"I can't go out," Wade repeated. "I can't go…outside," he shook his head as if he could scarcely believe his own words. "If I try to go outside, my heart rate goes up, I sweat, I tremble…I can't make my legs move, I can hardly breathe."

"Agoraphobia," Lavon said.

"A-what-o-phobia?"

"Agoraphobia, fear of open spaces," Lavon said authoritatively. "That's treatable, you need treatment. Get some help dude."

"And I suppose I'd have to go out to get help, now wouldn't I?" Wade said sarcastically. "Well, fuck that, I got a bar to run, this a-what-o-phobia helps me focus."

"Aw, man, you don't have to be sick to run a bar, although," Lavon mused, "it might help."

"Nah, I know this business," Wade, said wiping hand across his face, "this can actually be a help."

"And does the whiskey help?" Lavon nodded toward Wade's coffee cup, which smelled like it was half coffee, half JD.

Wade sat up straight, put his hands on his knees, took a deep breath, and looked off into the distance over Lavon's right shoulder. He seemed to be deep in thought, or it could be he had forgotten Lavon was there, as he tilted his head a little and his lower lip began trembling. He bit down, looked at the floor again, then up into Lavon's eyes.

"Yes, sometimes."

"You can't keep this up," Lavon said, reaching over to touch Wade's forearm.

At that point, Carrie Swain walked up to them, smiled at Lavon, and looked expectantly at Wade.

"Will you excuse us a minute?" Wade said to Lavon, who looked at them both for a moment, then got up and went to the other end of the bar where Lemon was sitting with a calculator, a pencil, and some writing paper.

Lavon jerked his head back toward Wade. "Is he sober right now?"

Lemon looked up from her calculations, first at Lavon, then Wade. "Reasonably so, I think."

"I don't know what's goin' on," Lavon complained. "Wade's moved out of the gatehouse, even though he says he hasn't, and I haven't even been able to reach him. His phone just rings and rings, I can't even leave him a message."

Lemon nodded. "He thinks he lost it out at Phillips Lake when he went fishing. He said there was something wrong with the voice-mail, but he hadn't had a chance to fix it yet. He says," here Lemon turned to face Lavon head-on, "he's not getting another cell phone, if anyone wants him he'll be here. All the time. ALL the time."

Lavon's jaw dropped. "So his agoraphobia…"

"I think it's crap," Lemon said, "but at least he's downstairs now. He's spent the last three days drinkin', throwin' up, eatin' God knows what, chips I think, drinkin' some more, and throwin' up some more. His gastro-intestinal tract must be a mess."

"I didn't even know there was an apartment upstairs," Lavon said.

"Neither did I," said Lemon, "until just a few days ago. We thought it was just storage space, so we never looked up those stairs in the back of the kitchen. Wade got to roaming that first night he was here, checking out the place he says top to bottom, stem to stern, although he also mentioned something about 'marking his territory', which may or may not involve bodily fluids, I just prefer not to think of that. Anyway, turns out there is an apartment above the back of the building, a fully functional bathroom and everything, but no one wanted to live there because of the noise so Wally just forgot about it, used it to store files and things. It can get awfully hot in the summer too, and Wally wouldn't put air conditioning in an empty room…Wade just came upstairs and fell on the bare mattress and that was it, he was home. Hasn't left the building since."

Lavon sighed. His friend was seriously wounded, and seriously in denial, and he wasn't sure how to help him. He went back up to the other end of the bar, feeling a little like that light in those ancient video games like pong, just bouncing from one angle on a side to another, careening between extremes. As Lavon walked up to Wade, Carrie was just leaving, and Wade gave her a peck on the forehead and said "Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"Glad to help out," she smiled, and she was gone.

"So," Lavon said as he sat down on the stool next to Wade, "let me understand this. You are NOT vacating the gatehouse, so I should just leave things as they are, right?"

Wade nodded. "Oh, and bring me my guitars, would you Lavon? The electric and both acoustics. You can leave the amp, we should have house amps here."

"OK," Lavon said, "you really gonna do this?"

"Do what, Lavon?" Wade said angrily, "pay attention to my business? Is that really such a bad thing?"

"Is that what you're doin', payin' attention to business?" Lavon said, raising his voice. "Or are you hidin' out?"

Wade sat on the barstool staring at Lavon, kind of swaying, when suddenly his eyes went wide with fear, he stood up shakily, and clutched one hand to his chest.

"Oh Christ I can't breath," Wade started to rasp, his gasping increasingly desperate.

Lemon stood up at the other end of the bar, reached over it and grabbed a brown bag, and came down to Wade with it, snapping it open as she came.

"Here, breathe into this," she said, handing the bag to Wade. He sat back down and began breathing into the bag.

"Panic attack," Lemon explained, "maybe it had something to do with what you said, maybe it didn't. He gets 'em now for no reason at all. Don't blame yourself."

Lavon looked at Lemon with some sympathy. "He's just full of neuroses now, isn't he?"

Lemon nodded. "The screaming is a little unnerving."

"Screaming?" Lavon could hardly believe his ears.

"Yeah," Lemon said matter-of-factly, "he passes out for a few hours then wakes up screaming, sometimes its words and sometimes just noises. As long as he stays upstairs when he's like that I'm not gonna bother him. Like I say, today's the first day he's been downstairs in three days, and it has only been a few hours and he's already had two panic attacks. Even so, I think that's an improvement."

"Really?"

"I do, Lavon. Wade is strong; he'll bounce back from this. I know Miss Zoe High Heels was the love of his life, but he will accept one day that it was a career choice more than a personal choice that separated them."

"I don't know Lemon, he's taking this pretty hard."

"Nonsense, it hasn't even been a week yet, we're still in the very dark period. He can't even say her name yet. He'll snap out of it soon, he just needs time and understanding."

Lavon looked at her skeptically.

"I give it a week," Lemon said with a wave of her hand, "and he'll be back to the old Wade Kinsella, fixin' the dishwasher, makin' drinks, and chasin' the women."

"A week?" Lavon shook his head. "Naw, naw, naw, not possible."

"Two weeks, then," Lemon said stubbornly, "he just needs some TLC." She looked at Wade. "Do you want to go upstairs or rest here for a bit, maybe get some real coffee for a change? Cody, can you get rid of this," she waved at Wade's cup, "and bring us some HOT COFFEE," Lemon emphasized the last words so Cody would know Wade had already been nipping.

"Two weeks, tops, Lavon. I need him," Lemon murmured as Lavon got up to go.

Wade was now breathing normally, but staring at the floor just in front of Lemon.

"OK, man, gotta go," Lavon clapped his friend on the shoulder. "I'll get those guitars to ya later today, OK?"

"Thanks, Lavon," Wade said, raising his hand in goodbye although his eyes never left the floor.

Lemon put her hand on Wade's shoulder, and as she watched Lavon go, she thought that she kept losing the men in her life, but she damn well wasn't going to lose this one.

It didn't take long for Zoe to find out Zach was back at the hospital on staff, and that he was engaged to a nurse in pediatrics. Guess he got what he wanted, she thought, someone he can feel superior to. It also didn't take long for an idea to form. It wouldn't take much to avoid him, this was New York after all and it was a big hospital, but Zoe kept a close eye on his schedule so she could eventually run into him and make it look coincidental. She even went out of her way to observe an operation of his, just to get a lay of the land, so to speak. He was still very good, she noticed, but he didn't have her hands, which she thought, somewhat immodestly, were the best in the business. That gave her another idea, and over the next few days she filled in the details.

One day Zoe just happened to be hanging out by the men's changing rooms for the surgical suites when Zach came out.

"Zach, what a surprise!" Zoe exclaimed, rushing up to him and touching his forearm. "I didn't know you were back!"

"Yeah, yeah, hi Zoe," Zach said somewhat nervously, stopping in his tracks and very nearly taking a step back.

"So, how's it going?" Zoe smiled, just on the warm side of tepid, but leaning in as if she might be interested. "Heard you got engaged." She gave a little forced smile and flexed her knees a bit, head down a smidge…a move, she realized suddenly, she had seen George do when he congratulated her about Wade…good, a touch of realism. "Congratulations."

"Uh, thanks Zoe."

Zach seemed disarmed already, she thought. This might be easy.

"So, listen, I've gotta go now, but I'd really like to catch up with you…maybe drinks later? Whatta ya say?" Zoe shrugged, raising her eyebrows just the right amount to suggest a friendly drink, nothing more.

"Well," Zach rubbed his neck and stared at the floor, while Zoe thought 'crap I've moved too fast, he's starting to think now', so she just plowed right ahead.

"I won't bite," she leaned in close and smiled into his eyes, "I promise."

"OK then," he relented and smiled back. "Austin's at eight?"

"I'll be done by then, see you there cowboy," Zoe smiled and brushed his forearm as she turned and left. Too much, she thought? Naw, it's best to keep them guessing.

She left the hospital immediately, her shift having ended an hour earlier, and took the subway downtown, headed for a little shop called "Lansbury's" that carried Zach's favorite perfume. She knew it was his favorite because he had bought her a bottle and said it made her smell so sexy and it drove him wild. She didn't remember the name of the perfume, but she'd recognize the package. It was the same package she used to throw it out with at her first opportunity. She'd hated it, but had endured it for Zach as long as she could. She'd have to endure it one more time. She found what she needed and headed home to shower and dress.

She chose what to wear carefully. Before dressing, in the bathroom, she got Zach's perfume, sprayed a cloud in front of her and, closing her eyes, she stepped through it. Once on the other side, she shpritzed a little perfume just above her pubic hair, and then went out to the bedroom. She picked out a pair of pink silk panties with 'Zoe' embroidered delicately in purple thread on the hip, something she had picked up special from Victoria's Secret, not for this occasion especially, but it was coming in handy. The dress was a little skin-tight black number that came to about mid-thigh, the only question, really, was gold or silver accessories. She chose silver, her Aztec necklace with the long dangly sharp earrings that she liked to think of as daggers. No rings, keep her hands free.

At eight o'clock sharp, Zoe was seated at the bar of Austin's, what New York thought a honky-tonk might be if it wasn't surrounded by gators and crawfish and instead was surrounded by doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers, whose offices did literally surround Austin's. It was a popular hangout for the country-minded young professionals in the neighborhood, of which there seemed to be a growing number. It was a scene Zoe had come to from the other side, from the real thing, so it amused her. She had her vodka martini, straight up with two olives (greens are an important part of any diet), and was working on the second olive and the second half of the drink when Zach arrived.

"Wow, Zoe, you look…amazing," Zach eyes went wide as he looked her up and down appreciatively.

Zoe smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it," Zach said, sitting down on the stool next to her.

"What're you having?" Zoe asked, waving the bartender over.

"Beck's dark."

"A Beck's dark for my friend here," Zoe said to the bartender, "and I'll have another." She picked up her glass and drained it.

"Thought you only drank wine, Zoe," said Zach, looking at her glass.

"Well, Zach, wine just doesn't cut it anymore," Zoe said quietly. "Things change, things happen, people change."

"Really," Zach said as the bartender brought their drinks.

"What's your name?" Zoe asked the bartender.

"Danny," he said.

"We're running a tab here, OK, Danny?" Zoe asked him, indicating Zach and her.

"OK."

"So," Zoe said, sipping her martini and turning to face Zach, her legs carefully crossed, "who's the lucky lady?"

"Cheryl," Zach smiled shyly, suddenly looking at his feet, "Cheryl Maloski, she works in pediatrics."

Zoe nodded, keeping her eyes on Zach. Look at me, you stupid bastard, she thought, not your shoes.

"Well, I'm happy for you, Zach," Zoe smiled. "How long have you known her?"

That brought his eyes up to hers.

"Please don't be like that, Zoe."

"Sorry," she said, locking her eyes on his hoping he wouldn't look away again, "I guess that came out wrong, I don't mean to be catty…"

"OK, OK, I guess I just didn't know what to expect tonight, Zoe. The last time we saw each other…"

Zoe held up her hands. "Water under the bridge, Zach. As you say, it's been a while now. Some things just weren't meant to be."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Zach said, smiling, taking his first sip of beer. "Well, what about you? I heard you went to Arkansas or some sort of place."

"Yeah," Zoe laughed, taking a sip of her martini and looking at Zach's almost untouched beer, thinking this could take a while at this rate, "actually it was Alabama, and there's a really interesting story there…" which she proceeded to tell him over the next hour, all about being a small town GP, and all the crazy holidays and traditions they had, and all this time she watched his drink. What's the matter with him, she thought, he used to drink a lot sometimes, and here she was on her third martini, which was her sane limit, she knew, and he was only halfway through his second beer. On the spur of the moment, she ordered them shots.

"You know, in some ways, Zach, the old ways, the ways that those people in Bluebell hold dear, the old ways are the best. To the old ways!"

They did their shots and Zach blinked. Several times.

"Woo!" he said, shaking his head.

"Feeling better?," Zoe leaned over and smiled at him, clapping him on the back which totally drove out of his mind the notion that he wasn't feeling bad and didn't need to feel better. "Two more Danny!"

Danny poured two more, which Zach eyed warily.

"The old days!" Zoe lifted her glass, and they both threw back then slammed the shot glasses back down on the bar. Zach seemed definitely dizzy now, and while Zoe was too she figured she was a little more used to being buzzed than Zach was, so she wasn't worried. Zach smiled at her with a slightly dazed expression and stood up.

"I gotta go tinkle," he said, and giggled.

"Yeah, me too," Zoe smiled back, with just a hint of naughtiness, and she got up and followed him to the restrooms.

Zoe waited for him by the coatracks, and when he came out she lassoed him around the neck and pulled back behind the coats, where she kissed him fiercely and urgently. Her tongue sought an opening in his lips and he opened them, their tongues intertwining as they clung to each other. With her free hand Zoe reached down and unzipped Zach's pants, slipping her hand inside. The kiss deepened as their breath became more ragged and she began to stroke him gently inside his shorts.

Zoe broke the kiss only long enough to whisper, "Your place, now." He moaned a yes, they straightened themselves out, paid the bill and left.

Later that night, Zoe could see by the clock on the nightstand it was almost three, Zach lay exhausted on his bed, his breathing deep and even. She stared at the ceiling, making sure he was sound asleep before she got up and left. He had hardly moved or varied his breathing for a half an hour, so she quietly slipped out of bed and searched around for her silk panties with the embroidery. When she found them she put them back on, squatted, and rubbed her hand several times over her crotch. She then took them off and slipped them under the bed, just far enough so they weren't easily seen, and put on a pair of plain white cotton panties that she had brought in her purse. She finished dressing quietly and slipped out of the apartment, experiencing the first true emotion she had felt all night. Satisfaction.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie

Ch. 4

Zoe Hart was delighted, more delighted than she had been in a very long time. Well, at least a long time, but not a VERY long time. Her plan had worked out to perfection, even better if that was possible. Thanks to carefully planted rumors, which she had planted, which is why she knew they were carefully planted, the nurse in pediatrics got suspicious of Zach, started hunting around, and discovered Zoe's underwear under the bed. Pungent underwear, which Zach found very hard to explain; so hard, in fact, that Cheryl left him and went home to Boston, and Zach was so broken-hearted over the end of his engagement he went home to Philadelphia. It was like swatting a fly. She had crushed him, and it was easy. She was elated. It was as if the secrets of the universe had been unveiled to her. She had been wasting her time, she realized, trying to understand men. All it took was a firm hand on their dick. It was so simple, but then great wisdom often is, she thought. Who needs to understand men, when men are so easy?

Zoe found the power of her sexuality intoxicating, so intoxicating she brushed off the rumors that swirled around her with disdain, as if it was somehow her fault Zach and Cheryl weren't together anymore. It was just an innocent hookup between old lovers, she reasoned, and Zach certainly didn't seem unwilling. That's what she would have said had Zach approached her before he left, but he didn't.

Zoe was now sorely tempted to try out her new powers, so the next time she had a day off she went out the night before to find a lover. Any one would do, but he had to be attractive, of course, age-appropriate (no kids in their early 20s, those were just boys to her now), and he absolutely could not smell bad. That was a deal breaker, whether it was B.O. or bad cologne, she'd had enough of that.

Before she went out, Zoe chose her wardrobe carefully, just as she had before Zach. She ultimately chose a short black leatherette skirt, blood red shirt, black vest and gold necklace and earrings, big dangly ones for good luck. She examined herself in the mirror and thought she looked killer. How appropriate, she smiled to herself in the mirror, in the romance department she was the avenging angel of death, now go out there and kill something.

She was confident she could get any man she wanted in a dance club, whatever the music, so as an experiment she went to a place called Professor Moriarty's, where the music and the lighting were low. It took her twenty minutes to find Bobby, a tall dark-haired insurance actuary, thirty-three and divorced. She introduced herself as Veronica, an insurance investigator from Prudential, and they talked shop and drank. Bobby drank Bombay gin on the rocks with a twist, Zoe had martinis, and with hardly any effort at all she convinced him to take her home to his place. They had sex, which was unremarkable, since Bobby was pretty drunk, and Zoe left his apartment about two that morning, emboldened by her success.

Next week she went to Umma Gumma, a psychedelic retro bar with a dance floor, casual dress, and the guys tended to have longer hair and poorer paying jobs. It was there she found Charlie, a driver for UPS. This time she was Jessica, a paralegal for a downtown law firm. He invited her back to his loft to smoke some weed, and they made love, which was better than the last time because Charlie wasn't as drunk as Bobby, but she still left his apartment after he fell asleep. She absolutely refused to spend the night and go through all that awkward stuff in the morning.

Zoe found her adventures, as she thought of them, empowering. She felt liberated from the usual constraints she had operated under with men for most of her life. Now that she knew what simple creatures' men were, she found it amusing to manipulate them just to see if she could do it. Apparently this was a hidden talent that up to now she knew nothing about, but as she experimented, week after week, different bars and different men, she discovered she was good at it. She even began to wonder where this talent had been all her life, until she realized that of course she had been in school and had little opportunity to exercise it.

Zoe's work did not suffer, she only went out on the nights before her days off, and she hardly drank during the week at all. She still hadn't been put on permanently at the hospital, but she had continued to work on a series of temporary extensions until something permanent came along. She was getting her share of operations, and she was also developing a reputation as an excellent surgeon, although a little cold sometimes.  
The other doctors and the OR nurses found her easy to work with, just not so easy to get to know. She didn't volunteer much information about herself, but she was always pleasant and upbeat so no one minded too much.

It was in a nightclub called Quincy's that Zoe found Darryl. He was a tall, blond guitarist for a cover band called "The Cucumber Conspiracy". They played the Stones, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Mellencamp. Zoe had never been to Quincy's before, and she got a seat at a table near the bandstand. She noticed the guitarist first thing, and he noticed her right back, his eyes kept drifting to her as he played. When they finished their set he walked over to her table.

"May I sit down?" he asked politely.

Zoe nodded, a half smile forming on her face. He would do, she thought.

He sat down, put his elbows on the tiny table that held her drink, and leaned forward.

"Name's Darryl. You like our music?"

She nodded again, this time smiling fully as she gazed into his eyes. They were hazel.

"We have another set," Darryl said, "but I'll be through in about an hour or so, then we can talk if you like."

"Or not talk if we like," Zoe smiled coquettishly. "I'll be right here."

Darryl smiled knowingly, stood up and went backstage. After a short break, they came back and played their last set.

After the band had broken down their equipment, Darryl came over to Zoe's table and sat down. He smiled shyly at her, as if all his swagger and confidence from earlier had disappeared. It was a beautiful smile, Zoe thought, not so full of itself, just warm and inviting. His hazel eyes seemed to glow.

"So, I've introduced myself, what's your name?" Darryl asked.

"Call me Gar," Zoe said on impulse. "Short for Ermingarde, my mother had a wicked sense of humor."

"Gar," Darryl said, "interesting name."

Zoe nodded. "It's my great-grandmother's name, from the old country. My mother's family came here from Germany before the war." Part of that statement was true, which made it easier to say. She was starting on her fourth martini, which she knew could be dangerous territory, but Darryl looked so sweet she decided to risk it.

"It's beautiful, as are you," Darryl said warmly.

"Can I get you a drink?" Zoe asked.

"No, thanks, I don't drink." Darryl said as his eyes never left Zoe's.

"You don't?" Zoe said, somewhat startled.

"Yeah, well," Darryl ran his hands through his hair and grinned sheepishly, "I used to, but I sort of had a one way love affair with alcohol. I loved scotch, but it never loved me back, so I had to leave it."

Zoe laughed. "I think I know what you mean." She took a sip of her martini, then suddenly got self-conscious. "You don't mind if I indulge, do you?"

"No, no," Darryl smiled and waved his hands, "it's not your problem, it's mine. Hope you don't mind if I abstain."

"I don't mind," Zoe said, shaking her head, "in fact it might make things better."

Darryl just raised his eyebrows.

"You live nearby?" Zoe asked

Darryl looked at her closely, wondering how he had gotten so lucky as to have the prettiest girl in the place hitting on him. He was a guitarist in a band, after all, and had his share of girls flirt with him because of it, but this girl was extraordinary, long silky chocolate brown hair and big warm eyes like muddy jungle pools.

"Yeah, it's a short walk," he said.

"OK, then, cowboy," Zoe said, leaning forward and then throwing her head back to finish her drink. "I think I'd like to get better acquainted, how about you?"

Darryl just smiled and nodded, and Zoe's heart melted. He was cute, there was no doubt about that, and talented…and his eyes, she'd always loved that little touch of green in the eyes, which rang a very faint alarm at the back of her mind, but she just pushed it down as she stood up, put her arm through Darryl's, and let him guide her back to his apartment.

It was closing time at the Rammer Jammer, and Lemon sat at the bar with a Jim Beam on the rocks and a worried expression. It had been weeks now and Wade wasn't over his funk yet. He'd settled into a routine, he'd open the doors in the morning and help out with the breakfast rush, getting the coffee started, taking orders at the counter, and absolutely no drinking before 10am. He was very firm about that. Anybody who worked with him in the morning knew that. Lunch could be problematic, and by midday Wade was ready for a nap upstairs. As Lemon stared out the window, she knew they might be able to sustain this for a few more months, but he was so indecisive now and she wasn't sure of herself yet in dealing with the vendors. She could book the bands, but she didn't know enough about music to be sure she was booking the right ones, and she was always second-guessing herself. She needed the old Wade back, and didn't know how to get him.

The front door opened. "We already gave last call," Lemon said without turning around.

"It's OK, I just wanted to drop these off," Carrie Swain said, carrying a laundry basket full of clothes into the bar.

Lemon took a quick look at Carrie's load and recognized Wade's clothes. "You're doing his laundry?"

"Well," Carrie ducked her head, she had always been afraid of Lemon, "I wanted to help, since he can't go out…"

"Just put 'em over there," Lemon gestured to the other end of the bar, "I'll take care of it."

"OK," Carrie said uncertainly as she walked over to the counter and set the clothes down. "Well, it's late, I gotta go, see ya Lemon."

"See ya, Carrie." Lemon finished her drink, went over to the front door and locked it. She had hired Tom Long to come over and finish cleaning up, but he wouldn't arrive until almost two, from his second job, and he had a key to let himself in, so she walked to the end of the bar, picked up the laundry basket, and headed into the kitchen and the stairs that led up to Wade's room.

Lemon figured he'd be up now, he'd woken up from his midday nap hours ago, and just because she didn't hear anything from upstairs didn't mean anything. Wade played his electric guitar at night a lot now, with the headphones on so he wouldn't wake up the whole town. Lemon thought the chances were good she'd find Wade rocking out silently, picking the strings and sometimes flailing his arm with only the plinking of the unamplified guitar and the low buzz of the headphones as accompaniment.

Wade had rigged a light to go off over his door when the door at the bottom of the stairs was opened, so he wasn't caught in any embarrassing situations, but so far it hadn't happened, and besides the only person to come upstairs was Lemon, so he really didn't care. Wade was feeling good, his head wrapped in warm cotton and Jack Daniels and the sounds of Bo Diddley, playing his air guitar 'chunka-chunka-chunka chunk chunk', his eyes closed, his mouth snarling, feeling the beat down in his toenails, the sounds and feelings new as if they had just been invented for him, his whole body shaking in time to a primitive 'Willie and the Hand Jive' on his mp3.

Lemon burst through his door, carrying the laundry basket, which, after seeing Wade careening around the room oblivious to everything, she proceeded to drop loudly on the floor. Wade noticed the vibration and turned around.

"Hey, Lemon," he grinned, pulling off his ear buds. "What's up?"

"Having fun?" Lemon snapped sarcastically.

"Yes, I am," Wade smiled, his feet still moving, his hips still swaying, as he glided toward Lemon in his stocking feet, put his hand on her hip, the other in her hand, and waltzed her a few steps around the room. Lemon instantly felt the tightness in her neck melt away as she gave in to the impromptu waltz, and a sudden smile burst out on her face as they swirled around the room in silence.

"You OK, Lemon-gitis?" asked Wade with that little half grin of his, using a variation on Lemon's name she hadn't heard in almost twenty years.

"Yes," Lemon giggled, "I think I am."

"Hey," Wade said as he spun her to a stop, "I've been steeping myself in the classics over the last few days…oh, I see Carrie's been here," as he stopped to notice the laundry, "let me put that away, it'll just take a sec," and Wade proceeded to kick the laundry basket off to the side, where it miraculously landed upright, "I've been steeping myself in the classics, you know, early Elvis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly…it's amazing what you can find on the internet these days, but I guess you knew that…well, speakin' of amazing…"

"When are you coming back to work, Wade?"

He just looked at her and sighed.

"I'm at work every day Lemon, you know that."

"I'm not talking about that deaf-and-dumb busboy act you put on every morning, I'm talking about the Wade Kinsella who knew what he wanted and was going out and getting it!"

"Lemon, you're doing fine with the bar, you just need to be more confident around those good old boys, you know who I mean…"

"Wade," Lemon clenched her fists by side, "you are the single most infuriating man on God's gray earth, we are not talking about me, we are talking about you, the old you, the man in charge around here…"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, you were the one that wanted to be the big female business executive, well, these are executive type things we're talking about, I don't know what you're talkin' about…"

"You remember Dickens? From high school?" Lemon countered, seeing an opportunity to seize the moment.

"We didn't go to school with any Dickens, Lemon," Wade said dismissively.

"No, Charles Dickens, you idiot. Oliver Twist. The Artful Dodger. That's you, mister, the artful dodger. Never answer a question, always turn the conversation away from you. I'm not letting you this time."

Wade drew back a bit and looked at Lemon askance. "You need a drink."

Lemon looked at him and sighed.

"All right, but I need ice."

"I have that," Wade said with a flourish as he stepped over to the mini-fridge, opened the door and pulled out the ice cube trays from the little freezer.

"Wow, all the comforts of home," Lemon marveled as she walked over to Wade's bed and sat down.

"You bet," Wade said as he produced two glasses with ice and a bottle of JD. He sat down, splashed a generous amount in both glasses and handed one to Lemon.

"Better days," Wade said as he hoisted his drink and took a long pull.

"Better days," Lemon said, raising her glass and clinking it with Wade's. They both took a pull, her first, his second. They sat in silence for a while. Finally, Lemon looked at Wade, cupping her glass with both hands and leaning toward him.

"What about it?"

Wade splashed some more whiskey into his glass and eyed Lemon warily. He decided it might not be wise to be flippant with her right now.

"That guy's gone, Lemon, I don't know where he went, but he's gone." Wade shook his head sadly and took a hit of the Jack.

Not knowing quite what else to do, Lemon also took a big swallow of whiskey, and very nearly choked. Her eyes bugged out and started to water, so she lazily leaned over and set her glass on the floor for a moment and coughed gently behind her hand. After she composed herself, she picked up her glass again and sat upright. She said the first thing that came into her mind.

"Don't you think we need to find him?"

"Don't know where to look Lemon," Wade said brusquely as he downed the rest of his drink and got up to get another. "Hey," he said, turning abruptly toward Lemon with a big smile on his face, "I just heard this song, it's a vocal and just two parts, a guitar and maracas, you could do it with me and be a rock star. It's perfect, really simple, very funky, all you gotta do is shake your money maker!" Wade wiggled his hips before grabbing the bottle and filling his glass. "You just gotta get drunker, that's all."

"Wade," Lemon laughed, "believe me I am not the rock star type, no matter how drunk I am! Maybe a country diva…" she struck a pose on the bed, fluttering her hands beside her head.

"Oh, you could do it, Breeland," Wade nodded his head emphatically, "Country diva, sure, no problem, but you'd be a kick ass rock star."

"Well, all right then," Lemon giggled as she held out her glass for Wade to refill, which he did with a wave of the bottle.

"But you've gotta really FEEL it, Breeland," Wade said as he went over to his amp, swapped out some connectors and plugged in a second set of headphone and put his mp3 in a dock. "Put these on," he tossed her the headphones, "we can hear it but it won't wake the neighbors."

Lemon stood up and put on the headphones. "Cord?" she asked.

"Wireless," Wade said as he searched the room with his eyes. He found the maracas and kind of skittered over to get them in his stocking feet. "Easy to slip. Hey, get your shoes off girl."

Lemon stepped out of her moccasins, wondering if perhaps this was the reason she had, for reasons unknown to her until now, deliberately dressed down today, just jeans, black socks, a plain white men's oxford shirt. It was a mood that seldom struck her, and perhaps it was for that same reason she hadn't left the Rammer Jammer all day either. She had thought maybe it was because she was wearing jeans, but it began to dawn on her that maybe she was wearing jeans because it was an excuse not to go out, and she began to get a glimmer of Wade's dilemma.

Wade handed her the maracas.

"You'll know what to do, trust me."

Lemon smiled, nodded uncertainly, then reached down, grabbed her drink, threw it back, and set it down on the dresser top.

"Woo!" she gasped.

"Well all right then," Wade exclaimed and turned on the music.

Lemon was startled by how loud the headphones were at first, but the clarity was stunning. There were no drums, just the maracas, and a single electric guitar that was laying down a beat and a primitive melody at the same time that made her want to move her feet and shake her maracas, and just when she had closed her eyes and got a good groove there was a second guitar, playing with and then departing from the first, an irresistible counter-beat, and Lemon opened her eyes and saw it was Wade playing the second guitar, chunka chunka chunka, and their eyes met, and he nodded at her.

"You got it Breeland!" he nearly shouted, and they just went BANG into the song, Wade wailing on his guitar, Lemon shaking those maracas for all she was worth, shaking her behind with it, eyes closed, totally transported. They absolutely COOKED for two minutes and twenty four seconds. When the song was done, Lemon jumped up and squealed, Wade pumped his fist and went "YEAH!"

They were both out of breath, they just stood there looking at each other and panting. Finally Wade broke his gaze, reached over and took a drink. As he set his drink down by the amp, he turned to look at her.

"Wanna do another?"

Lemon just nodded eagerly, looked at her empty glass on the dresser, and Wade grabbed the bottle and filled it. Lemon took a swallow and blinked her eyes.

"Ooh, big girl," Wade grinned.

"You bet," Lemon nodded in assent.

"OK, this time just follow my lead, it'll be just me," and Wade started playing chords that were as chunky as 2-inch-thick chocolate with raisins and nuts, and he was right, Lemon knew just what to do, and they were off again, rockin' and rollin' down to their bones, and Lemon she hadn't felt this good in ages, it was all just perfect, like in high school almost, dancing in someone's basement, usually Annabeth's but sometimes Cricket's, and everything was OK for a while.

When they finished, they both collapsed on the bed, laughing and panting.

"We oughta do this on open mic night," Wade gasped between fits of giggles.

"Oh, I don't think I could do that," Lemon snorted as she sat up, then started laughing again because she snorted.

"Sure ya could, Lemonade, just get a couple drinks in ya and you're set to go."

"I don't know, Wade, I can't do that, at least not as a lifestyle." Lemon looked at her stocking feet.

Wade sat up on the bed and looked at her with a sad little smile. "No, I guess you couldn't, but…" he grinned, "it can be fun once a while."

"Yes, it can," Lemon said smiling as she reached out without thinking and held Wade's hand, giving it a good squeeze. He gave it a good squeeze back as he also stared at the floor. They sat quietly for several minutes holding hands, both of them staring at the floor, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

Wade finally stood up, went over to the bottle of Jack Daniels, picked it up by its neck and walked back to the bed.

"Nightcap?" Wade asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Sure," Lemon said, knowing full well she'd already had too much to drink but she wasn't at all sure about the feelings she had been feeling over the last few minutes, or few weeks for that matter, or even further back than that, she wasn't so sure anymore about that either. She had known Wade all her life, but she was now feeling a tenderness towards him that she had never felt before, an urge to protect him, from the world or himself if need be. She couldn't explain it, and didn't know what it was.

Wade handed her her glass, sat back down on the bed and took a big pull…Lemon did the same. They both put one leg up on the bed so they could face each other.

"Wade," Lemon began, "that guy that used to be you, the guy you say is gone, I need that guy back. It's not just the good old boys or the beer truck or the liftin'…you have no idea how much I need him back…" Lemon choked out as a tear started to trickle down her cheek.

Wade reached over and wiped it away with his callused hand, then leaned in to her.

"Lemonade," he crooned softly, soothingly, and she started to cry in earnest, big teardrops that fell onto the quilt on the bed.

"I can't stand to see you like this, Wade, I need you to come back, I want you to come back, you just have to come back," Lemon sobbed, leaning forward until their foreheads touched. She took his hands in hers.

"Patience, Lemon," Wade muttered, wiggling his fingers in Lemon's hands but otherwise not moving. "Heard that recently from someone…you I think…oh, and an old woman out in the woods, but she wasn't real," he chuckled.

"Wasn't real?" Lemon questioned softly.

"Yeah," Waded nodded gently, so their foreheads remained in contact, "after she left I went fishin', this woman found me, old maybe, she had gray hair, but a young face, told me I needed patience and courage and things'd be all right, then poof, she was gone in a cloud of whiskey. That sound real to you?"

"No," Lemon practically whispered, "it just sounds like one of those old Bluebell legends like the gypsy. Disappears in a cloud of whisky, I bet she does."

They stayed like that for several minutes, forehead to forehead, Lemon holding Wade's hands. Lemon finally broke the silence.

"I will never let anything happen to you," she whispered almost inaudibly, but it wouldn't have made any difference, for Wade was fast asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: hart of dixie own I not

Ch. 5

Wade awoke with a pounding headache and coconut-scented blonde hair tickling his nose. The headache he was used to, this happened every morning, but the hair was different, who?...oh my god. It came back to him, last night and the singing, Lemon, they were talking about that woman.

Wade began a mental inspection of his extremities while trying to remain motionless. He found himself spooned up against Lemon, they were both fully clothed, and he had his left arm draped over her hipbone. He couldn't feel his right hand, though. He rolled slightly away from Lemon and discovered he was lying on it, which explained the lack of feeling. He rolled further over and slid quietly and gently off the bed, stood up, and made his way to the bathroom, where he closed the door and threw up in the toilet.

Wade had discovered, through trial and error, that throwing up first thing in the morning after a whiskey drunk seemed to make him feel better, and after rinsing his mouth with mouthwash and brushing his teeth, he always felt somewhat refreshed, although he still had a pounding head, but that, he knew, could be dealt with later. He foresaw a larger problem as he stood staring at his reflection in the mirror. Lemon would rather be dragged behind a pickup truck than be seen coming out of his apartment in the morning, innocent or not, and she would especially hate to be seen the way she was. He needed an idea.

In retrospect, Wade thinks it began here, when he changed into clean clothes and went downstairs, leaving a note for Lemon to stay put.

Wade got Cody to drive Lemon's car home, Annabeth to drive around back of the Rammer Jammer to pick up Lemon on the sly and take her home, and all in remarkably short time. Wade decided it felt good to make decisions again, so he decided to make another one. He decided he was going to put off drinking as long as he could that day because, well, why the hell not?

Lemon breezed in around nine, fresh as a spring morning. Wade noted her attire as she walked past him without even glancing his way at the end of the bar; tan slacks, yellow cuffed shirt, sneakers, hair in a ponytail. She swooshed through the dining room, kitchen, and into the office with a smile and nod to everyone. She closed the door.

About an hour later Earl Kinsella entered the Rammer Jammer, spotted his son at the end of the bar drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, and strode over to Wade with a sense of purpose in his walk.

Wade glanced up.

"What do you want, old man?"

Earl beamed.

"Thought I could sing you down from a rooftop for a change."

Wade blanched.

"What day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"No, no, the date."

"The ninth," Earl Kinsella said proudly.

Wade sat back in his chair and looked at his father, clean-shaven, hair combed, although it still was too long, Wade thought, no rheumy eyes, no shakes. Sober? Wade sat up a little straighter and looked Earl in the eye, who looked back and smiled and nodded.

Wade sighed, he had seen Earl try to quit drinking many times, and he had seen Earl fail just as many times. It was painful every time. And yet, Wade now had somewhat of an understanding what his father went through, losing his wife, it wasn't just Wade's mother that died, it was his father's wife, and what had once been unimaginable was now all too imaginable.

"How long?" Wade asked.

"About three months," Earl replied.

"Hmmph," Wade snorted, "I've got a hangover from last night, I've been up three hours, and already I want a drink. Tell you what, old man," Wade clapped his hands, "if you can do it, I can do it. Want some coffee?"

Wade hopped up from his barstool, ran around the bar, and got his dad a mug and the coffee pot. His seat was taken almost immediately by Lavon, who clearly looked agitated, so Wade grabbed a second mug and poured Lavon a cup.

"What's up, kemosabe?"

"Wade, you gotta see this," Lavon put a phone on the bar.

"That looks like my phone I lost out at Phillips Lake."

"You were out at Phillips Lake? When?" Earl Kinsella asked his son excitedly.

"You didn't lose it at Phillips Lake, I found it in your couch," Lavon said, "but you gotta see this."

"What were you doing in my couch?"

"Were you out at Phillips Lake on a new moon?"

Lavon just waved his hands like he was trying to take charge in the huddle.

"Wade, I found this in your couch a few days ago, got it charged up…it lists all your missed calls until it went dead," Lavon showed Wade the screen, "look here, me, me, me, Lemon, me, me again, Lemon, Meatball, Zoe."

"What?!" Wade's head was spinning. "Zoe, new moon, one at a time! You go first, Lavon."

"Look at the time stamp, Wade. Not more than an hour after she left you, she was calling you. What do you think that means, Wade? You need to go get her."

"Now wait a minute, Lavon, that's pretty slim evidence. She said we were too different, it would never work, I broke her heart and she wasn't taking any more chances on me."

"Your mother said the same to me once," Earl said. "That's why I'm asking about the new moon." Wade just shook his head at his father. "I did something stupid once, before your mom and I got married, and she threatened to call the whole thing off, and my heart just about died, so I did pretty much what you did, I guess, I went out to fish and drink at Phillips Lake. I was pretty drunk, but I remember this voice telling me to have patience and your mom'd come around, but I would need courage some day…"

"New moon, Earl," Wade prompted, the hairs on his neck starting to stand up.

"Yeah, it was a new moon, real dark that night, only the stars and the fire and the lake, I couldn't really see her hardly at all, but I've always thought it was just the whiskey…"

"Did you drink with her?" Wade asked slowly, leaning closer to his father.

"Yeah."

"And she helped you?"

"Yeah, she kept me from blowin' it with your mother, lettin' her go. You've heard her, haven't you?" Earl eyed his son closely.

Wade nodded.

"Took that campsite we always used to use, by that little cove at the foot of the lake, sat by the fire with her, shared my whiskey with her, she wore some kind of shawl, pretty eyes, hair a little gray, but a young face, you know, had a gray streak right over here," and Wade gestured to his right temple.

Earl gasped. "You've seen her?"

Wade nodded.

"You'd best do what she tells you, son. You can't stop the magic, you know."

Something happened in Wade's heart, like a tumbler falling into place in a lock, and he nodded.

Lavon looked at Earl, then back at Wade.

"Let me know when you're ready, I'll go with you," Lavon said.

Wade stood up, threw his arms wide and bent himself backwards, stretching his back like a cat. He straightened up, looked Lavon in the eye, and stuck out his hand.

"Thanks Lavon. I'll let you know. First I have to figure a way out of this bar."

Later, after Lavon and Earl had left, and just before the lunch rush began, Lemon came out of the office and walked casually down to where Wade was leaning behind the bar. She mirrored his pose, elbows on the bar, face down. Their shoulders were touching.

"If anyone asks, what are you going to say about last night?" Lemon murmured.

"Nothing." Wade said quietly. "And nobody will ask."

"Oh, come on, somebody will ask," Lemon's voice began to go up a bit, so Wade began to hum.

"Nobody knows anything, Lemon," Wade whispered urgently, "so nobody will ask."

"Somebody will ask," Lemon insisted.

Wade stood up, turned to her and smiled that little smile of his.

"Wanna bet?"

Lemon straightened up, turned to face Wade, and cocked her head to get a different angle.

"Are you sober?" she asked.

"So far," Wade said, still smiling.

Lemon lowered her head and raised her eyes.

"Are you back?"

"I'm back."

Zoe had grown tired of the meaningless hookups every weekend, and Darryl was really sweet, so she began to spend a lot of her off hours with him. He had a day job as a custodian in the New York City school system, and it was a union job so the pay and benefits made it livable, and he played gigs with the band several nights a week because he enjoyed it. He was about Zoe's age, she thought, he had never been married, and he had no children he was aware of. He had had a four year relationship break up a couple of years ago, and hadn't been seeing anyone since. He was easy-going and never questioned where Zoe was when she wasn't with him.

Zoe also found Darryl easy to talk to, the first person she had found easy to talk to in a long time. They could discuss anything, sometimes at length, sometimes obscure topics Zoe thought only she knew anything about. Darryl laughed easily, and was self-deprecating, and had a sharp eye for humor in everyday life. He was cute, he was smart, he was funny, he was talented. What more could Zoe Hart want? Being with Darryl was totally stress free.

That part was becoming more important because there was increasing stress on the job. She was getting more cardio-thoracic work, and more important work, meaning higher profile, but it was becoming increasingly unlikely she would be given another temporary extension. The hospital just didn't have the money for her right now, and while she could write her own ticket in any part of the country she wanted, she didn't really feel as if she had regained her footing since coming back from Alabama, and she hated the idea of moving again. Convincing herself that she performed well in high pressure situations took its toll. Her work soared, she soured.

At work she was Dr. Hart, the always-together heart surgeon she had always wanted to be, but away from the job she was either with Darryl chillin' out or just sitting at home, drinking martinis, staring at the wall and listening to Frank. She found Darryl's apartment in SoHo restful, but she strictly limited her time there. Darryl was sweet, an attentive lover, and the sex was pretty good, but she couldn't afford attachments right now, if she was going to have to move again.

There was also the little matter of her name and her job, neither of which Darryl knew. Zoe regretted giving her name as 'Gar' occasionally, but at other times she found it convenient. None of the men she had been with since leaving Bluebell had known she was a surgeon, and she was going to keep it that way. She had grown really fond of Darryl, but she never considered telling him she was a doctor. She would play with the idea of telling Darryl her real name, although she never came up with anything plausible to explain why she lied in the first place, but her job, that was off-limits. Personal life and professional life were going to stay separate.

When she wasn't with Darryl, or at work, she was alone. She would wander her apartment with a martini in her hand, sometimes dressed, sometimes not, and sing along to the CDs she bought. She discovered she had eclectic tastes, some cool jazz, some hip-hop, a few contemporary pop things, and always there was Frank Sinatra. For some reason Zoe found Frank's voice soothing, and almost every night she spent at home listening to music ended up at some point with Frank. She found a lot of country heart-breakingly sad now, and she found she couldn't listen to much of it without tearing up, but the sadness and longing and heartache in Frank's saloon songs comforted her as if they were the wisdom of the ages. She began to learn the lyrics just from repetition.

Zoe was home one night, she had her day off tomorrow and was planning on sleeping in, and was working on her fourth martini when she put on the disc with Frank singing "One More For The Road". She grabbed a throw pillow and lay back on the couch, setting her drink on the coffee table so she could wave her hands in time to the music. As Zoe closed her eyes, mouthed the words to the song and conducted an imaginary orchestra with her right hand, her left hand drifted down into the folds of the couch, where her fingers found what felt like a photograph. She pulled it out.

It was a picture of Darryl, asleep and slightly out of focus. Zoe frowned, asking herself why she would have a picture of Darryl asleep and out of focus when it hit her like an eighteen-wheeler. It wasn't a picture of Darryl, it was a picture of Wade.

And then everything hit her. Darryl's eyes, his hair, his smile, his mannerisms…it was Wade. She was moving on from Wade with an imitation of Wade, and truth be told a pale imitation of Wade. Her heart folded up like a cardboard box in a flood, and she began to cry uncontrollably, great wracking gouts of tears that seemed to well up from the bottomless depths of her despair. She held the picture next to her heart and sobbed, rolling over on her side on the couch and curling up in the fetal position, tears streaming off her face as if she was in a tropical downpour. She hadn't felt so alone in years.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N - Sorry for the delay, I had a hard time with this chapter, took several tries.

Disclaimer:These are not my characters, and I do not own them or Heart of Dixie

Ch. 6

The first thing Zoe did after work the next day was stop by an Army Navy store in mid-town and buy a black and red checked flannel shirt, extra large. She stopped at a Walgreen's and picked up the smallest bottle they had of the cologne Wade used on rare occasions. She went home.

Things with Darryl were over as of that moment. She could no longer look at him, or even think of him, without seeing Wade, and she was amazed that she hadn't seen it sooner, it was so obvious to her now. Whatever she had left at Darryl's, it was gone.

When Zoe got to her apartment door, she glanced over her shoulder as if she was breaking into her own place, and immediately wondered why she was being furtive. As she closed her door and double bolted it, she realized the difference was the shirt and the cologne. OK, she thought, this is my little secret, no one else's. She went to the bedroom and tossed her purchases on her bed.

Zoe went back out to the living room to hang up her coat and consider her next move. First things first, she thought, always follow the procedure. She got her glass pitcher, her bar tools, the ice, the right number of glugs, and presto, something cool and delicious and numbing. She closed her eyes as the martini slid down her throat, that familiar warmth igniting the glow from inside.

Zoe set the empty glass down on the coffee table and walked into the bedroom. She took out the shirt and carefully clipped all the tags off it, saving the paper and collecting those little plastic 't's that are left behind so they wouldn't stick her. She sat there thinking for a minute, just staring at the shirt, and finally balled it up as tight as it would go and then tossed it into the air. Zoe caught it, inspected it critically, shook it out, inspected it again, and balled it up even tighter and threw it into the air again. This time when she caught it, she took it into the bathroom before shaking it out. She drew back the shower curtain and laid the shirt in the tub. She stood back and considered it, then turned and went back to the kitchen to refill her glass, grab a large black plastic trash bag, and return to the bathroom.

Zoe took a sip of her drink, set it down on the vanity, and shook out the trash bag. She laid the shirt carefully inside the bag and set the bag in the tub. She opened the bottle of cologne, forced off the spray top, opened the neck of the bag, and shook the bottle vigorously inside the bag, spreading the contents in big globs rather than a fine mist. She removed the cologne, seeing that there was enough gone to satisfy the average teenage boy, which meant about a third of the bottle had been used, and put a cap on it. She carefully scrunched up the bag, burping the air out as the shirt got crumpled. When she got it down to an irregular soft lump, she tied off the bag so it would remain airless inside.

Zoe took the lump to the couch and stuffed it under a cushion. She then put on some music, one of her new favorites she had discovered off the internet…Billie Holiday. Zoe had been following her whims in music for a while now, and discovered Billie through Sammy Davis Jr. from Frank Sinatra. What this upper middle class Jewish girl from Manhattan didn't know about the blues could fill a stadium, but Zoe knew she liked the way Billie sang about sadness and heartache and loneliness, things Zoe could relate to. She plunked herself down hard on the couch, to further squish the shirt, if it was possible, and listened to the soundtrack of the Depression where broken dreams were a way of life.

The next day Dr. Mitchell called her into his office and gave her the bad news.

"Zoe, we can't keep you on in the New Year. The hospital is squeezing every department, and we're cutting some temporary positions, yours among them. I'm sorry, I'd love to have you on staff, but we just can't right now. Maybe in a year or two…"

"I can't believe you're firing me again," Zoe said.

"Zoe," Dr. Mitchell laughed, "I didn't fire you before, you didn't get the fellowship and you were gone. Did a couple years as a GP, who'd that go for you?"

"Mixed results," Zoe smiled weakly.

"Hey, I heard there were going to be some openings at Boston General, some folks retiring, they're looking for new blood, good hands, do you want me to give them a call?"

Zoe shook her head.

"No thanks, Glen, I want to stay around New York. Maybe later."

"OK," he smiled and stood up, signaling the end of the meeting. "Next time I can, and you're available, I'll hire you again. Deal?" He stuck out his hand.

"Deal," Zoe said, shaking his hand, and that was that.

Zoe had some thinking to do now, so she went down to the cafeteria and got a cup of coffee. She had about a month left on her contract until New Years, and she'd get paid if she showed up at the hospital or not, and after today she wasn't going to be on the schedule anymore…she got so lost in her own thoughts she actually bumped into the man in front of her at the checkout.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Zoe apologized, "I wasn't looking where I was going. Are you all right?"

The man, who was dressed in scrubs, turned around and smiled at Zoe.

"No, no, nothing fatal," he grinned as he looked her nametag. "Oh, you're Dr. Hart, you're doing that heart valve later this morning."

"Yes, I am," Zoe said, somewhat puzzled.

"I'm Neil, Neil Gallagher, Dr. Neil Gallagher, actually, anesthesiologist, I'm your gas passer." He stuck out his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Neil, I'm Zoe," she said, grinning at his obvious discomfort, although what he could be uncomfortable about she wasn't quite sure.

"Well, it's just that I've been waiting to meet you, I've worked with a lot of the surgeons here…here, you want to sit down?" he said as he paid for his coffee and muffin and Zoe paid for her coffee. They sat.

"I'm new here in New York, just moved here from Colorado a few weeks ago, and I thought I had worked with all the surgeons here but someone told me about you and your hands, so I had to see for myself. I've been looking forward to this operation."

Zoe smiled, held up her hands with her palms toward her and wiggled her fingers.

"Oh, yeah," Neil nodded admiringly, "I see what they mean."

Zoe laughed.

"Not good enough to keep me here another three months."

"Temp, huh? I'm a temp myself, different department though. I heard they were cutting temps here, belt-tightening. Still, it's New York, right? Lots of jobs."

"I've been here a long time," Zoe said, "I did my internship here, my residency here, it feels like home somehow," she shook her head.

"Well, you'll be back someday then," Neil smiled.

Zoe shook her head again.

"I don't know, Neil, it seems like there are only goodbyes in my life right now, there aren't any hellos," Zoe sighed, taking a sip of her coffee and gazing at the ground.

Neil leaned over the table and reached out a hand to Zoe, raising an eyebrow.

"Hello?"

Zoe looked up and got a good look at Neil. He had twinkling ice blue eyes, black hair with some gray scattered through it, and a goatee surrounding a very warm smile. She smiled back and clasped her right hand in his left and gave it a squeeze.

"Hello," Zoe said solemnly.

Neil gave her a squeeze back and back up straight.

"Better. A pretty girl shouldn't say such sad things."

"So," Zoe glanced at her watch, "I should go scrub up. See you in there."

As they stood up, Neil patted his scrub bottoms as if looking for something.

"Zoe, see me after, OK, let me give you my card, they're in my other pants," he grinned, "I might be able to help you out with your temp thing."

"OK," Zoe nodded as she took off for the dressing room.

When Zoe got back to her apartment that night, she dropped Neil's card on the coffee table, hung up her coat, fixed herself a pitcher of martinis, and put on Billie Holiday. Neil hadn't said much, only that he and Zoe might be able to help each other out. It might be worth giving him a call.

Zoe always thought better on her feet, a trait she thought was essential in a great surgeon, so she would often carry her drink around the living room, sometimes swaying and dipping to the music, when she was pondering some of life's more difficult questions. She was slowly acquiring a music for every mood or activity, walking, pacing, exercising, dancing, or even emotions like anger, love, sadness. It gave her freedom, oddly enough, in her apartment, alone. She cherished this time, jealously guarded her time alone in her apartment. It was only here that she could be herself, her secrets kept because it was an unspoken rule that it must be so, and there was no longer any need for pretense.

Zoe finished her first drink, set the glass down and went over to the couch, where she extracted the irregular soft lump from under the cushion. She carried it into the bedroom, ripped open the bag, and extracted the shirt, shaking it out vigorously. She laid the shirt carefully down on the bed, took all her clothes off, opened the buttons on the shirt, and shrugged into it. As it was an extra large, the shirt came down to her knees, and she had to undo the buttons on the sleeves and roll them up so she could have the use of her hands. The fabric of the crushed shirt was not yet soft enough to be luxurious, but she figured two or three washings would get it close enough to super-comfy, and if the scent began to fade she could always give it a light treatment and crush it up in a bag again.

She went out to the living room, turned down the lights and lay on the couch, closing her eyes and focusing on the soft flannel against her skin, breathing in deeply to inhale the scent, and thinking as she fell asleep that this was the most secret secret of all, no one will ever know. Especially herself.

"Now, Wade, you understand there can be no drinking while you are taking this medication," Brick was saying as Wade studied the bottle that Brick had brought to the Rammer Jammer. "This is a class of anti-anxiety medication that works very much like alcohol, and can amplify its effects, so if you are taking this," he held up the bottle in front of Wade's face, "and you drink, you run the risk of depressing your nervous system to the point that you will die. Do you understand my instructions?"

Wade nodded.

"I'm not fuckin' around here, Wade," Brick said severely, taking a good hard look at him, which woke Wade up because he couldn't remember the last time he heard Brick swear.

"No drinkin'," Wade nodded.

"Do not exceed the recommended dose," Brick added. "Need more, need a bigger dose, see me."

"What'll this do for me?" Wade asked.

"I am hoping to eliminate your panic attacks and reduce your agoraphobia to manageable levels where you can function outdoors, although we probably can't totally eliminate that, at least for now. You'll probably feel a little loopy for a while, until you get used to the meds. Probably shouldn't drive for a while." Brick packed up his bag, stood back and looked Wade up and down a couple of times, then nodded. "Good luck, son."

"Thanks Brick," Wade said as he shook the doctor's hand.

As Brick left through the front door, Lemon came into the bar from the kitchen, saw Wade, and made a beeline for him.

"Well, what did Daddy say?"

"Said I could control my fear of open spaces and panic attacks with these pills, but I can't drink."

Lemon grabbed the pills and took a look at the bottle.

"Oh yeah, he's right, he told me about this. Well, right after you take these we'll get you out there for a drive."

Wade gave her a panicked look.

"Oh, Wade, dear, I promise to keep it under a hundred," Lemon laughed gaily as she went back to the kitchen.

Wade went around the bar to get a glass of water to take his first dose. As he was swallowing his pills, he saw Sgt. Jeffries enter the Rammer Jammer. Wade had never seen him in here before, so he kept an eye on him out of curiosity. He needn't have bothered. Sgt. Jeffries was looking around the bar, and when he spotted Wade, he headed in his direction. When he got up in front of Wade, he plunked himself down on a stool.

"How you doin', boy?" he asked.

"Just fine, sir," Wade nodded. "Can I get you something?"

The old man shook his head.

"I hear you've seen the Gray Lady."

"Gray Lady?" Wade asked.

"Mmm," the old man nodded. "The spirit in Settlers Woods, by Phillips Lake. She come to help you out, you didn't even ask."

"Think you lost me, sergeant."

"You know who I'm talkin' about, boy, don't mess with me," the sergeant scoffed, "she'll come by the fire, if you bring her a present, and she'll help you win your heart's desire. You gotta do what she tells you, but you MUST bring her a present."

"She had some of my Wild Turkey," Wade said quietly.

"Mmm," the old man smiled, his eyes gleaming, "she likes that. What she really loves," here Sgt. Jeffries leaned close and whispered to Wade across the bar, "is moonshine." It was at this point the old man produced a small hip flask from his back pocket. "Not everybody gets to hear her, much less see her," he went on, "I've been waitin' years."

Wade nodded slowly.

"I'm going after Zoe, as soon as I can handle going outside."

The old man nodded vigorously.

"'Bout damn time. You makin' a fool outta yourself here, boy."


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own this intellectual property.

Ch. 7

The first ride Wade took was with Lemon, and not by choice. True to her word, Lemon was back in an hour.

"Had your meds?" she asked expectantly.

Wade nodded.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," Lemon leaned in a little closer to Wade, who was sitting at the bar looking blankly at the dining area. She slapped him on the shoulder.

"Let's go, buster."

Wade blinked a few times and seemed to re-focus his eyes on Lemon.

"Well," Wade grinned lazily, "I am relaxed."

"That's why we got to get a move on. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. Come on." Lemon tugged at Wade's sleeve, and he stood up. Lemon pulled him along to the door.

"We're just going out for some fresh air," Lemon said. "Here," she handed him a pair of squarish-looking sunglasses with a Panama hat, "now you're eccentric and everything you do from here on out is perfectly normal." Wade put them on without a word, and they left the Rammer Jammer. For Wade, it was the first time in months he had left the bar.

Wade doesn't remember much about that first trip out, other than Lemon kept up a non stop chatter about nothing, which he found he could tune out easily, with only the occasional bob of the head or 'oh yeah?' to let her know he was still there. It was pretty scary at first, especially when Lemon stopped by the beach for a few minutes, all that sky…

Wade's second trip was with Lavon, in the Navigator the next day, and Wade would have preferred having Lavon drive the first time, but there you are. It got a little easier with Lavon, Wade found he could actually get out of the vehicle for a little bit, although he couldn't stay long. Lavon seemed a little more sympathetic to Wade's plight than Lemon had been.

"I've seen a lot of my friends get hurt, play hurt, get over hurt. Everybody's different, man. I wanna help out if I can."

"Thanks, man," Wade said from the front seat of the Navigator as they tooled up the coast, "taking me out now, going with me to New York, I can't thank you enough."

"Nah, it's what friends do," Lavon waved it off with a smile. "Besides, I been to New York, you haven't. God knows what New York would do to you in your condition."

Wade didn't say anything, he just kept up his visual inspection of the interior of the SUV, avoiding looking outside. Finally Wade looked up at his friend.

"It'll take some getting used to."

"So," Lavon smiled and bounced both hands on the steering wheel, "can I ask you something?"

Wade nodded wearily.

"Why Zoe? Why now? Now I know," Lavon held up his hand, "the answer to the first question is kind of obvious, but on a different level, really, why her and not any of the others?"

Wade sighed and leaned back on the cushion.

"I just feel like a part of me is gone and I need to get it back."

"And why now?" Lavon asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Because there's no more time to waste," Wade said simply.

They drove back to the Rammer Jammer in silence.

It was about mid-afternoon later that day when Earl Kinsella walked into the Rammer Jammer looking for his son. He found him easily enough, behind the bar chatting up the customers. When Wade saw Earl, he motioned for him to come to the end of the bar.

"What you want, old man," Wade growled, this time with a grin.

"Wanna see how you're doin'," Earl grinned back.

"Good, good," Wade said in a low voice, "on the pills, off the booze, gettin' used to goin' out again."

Earl just beamed.

"Walk with me, son?"

Earl had been coming by pretty frequently these days, so this wasn't an unusual request. Wade grabbed his sunglasses and they walked out into the sunshine together.

"You OK outdoors now?" Earl asked, the concern evident in his voice.

"Yeah," Wade bobbed his head in agreement, "I can deal with it now, not for very long yet, but it's comin'."

Earl put his hand on Wade's back.

"I want to help you if I can. I see the way you look at that doctor. I think I have an idea how much she means to you. You can count on me," Earl said earnestly.

Wade turned to look at Earl.

"Count on you for what, old man?" Wade wasn't grinning this time.

"Now that I'm sober," Earl said, holding Wade's gaze, "maybe I can be useful."

The two men stood looking at each other for a very long time. Finally Wade nodded his assent.

"Well all right then," Wade said as if coming to a decision, "I'll keep you in mind."

A couple of weeks later, it was getting on toward Christmas, Wade was ready. He and Lavon were driving to Mobile, flying to Atlanta and then on to New York. Wade stopped by to see Brick on the way to the airport, who warned him to stay away from any additional stress, which Wade thought was well nigh impossible, and then they were off.

Wade sat on the aisle in the plane, his armrests in a deathgrip. His eyes were often closed, although it was hard to tell through the dark sunglasses. Lavon sat next to him, reading his book and glancing over occasionally to see if Wade was all right. Wade's breathing was even and regular, but his body was rigid.

As they neared the end of the flight from Atlanta to New York, Lavon spoke up.

"I've already checked, Zoe is working at Columbia Presbyterian, that's uptown, we'll take the train from the airport to Manhattan and head uptown on the subway. Can you handle that?"

Wade nodded slowly, his eyes still closed behind the sunglasses, although Lavon couldn't be sure.

"Subway might be good," Wade muttered.

They landed safely (Wade thought it was sheer will power that brought the plane back to earth), got what little luggage they had, and grabbed the next train into town. They dipped underground in Queens before going under the East River, and Wade felt a sense of relief when the sky disappeared.

They had gotten to Penn Station, and were transferring to an uptown train on a lower level, when the kid ran by, lifting Wade's wallet. In the time it took Wade to say 'hey' the kid was off heading for the stairs, and eventually the street and freedom, with Lavon in hot pursuit. Wade heard some shouting behind him, although what they were shouting he couldn't tell because of the echo in the nearly empty train platform, and then what sounded like a cannon going off, and then Lavon fell down in a heap as the train pulled in and the kid ran up the stairs.

Zoe had decided to give Neil a call after all, and they were having lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

"Glad you could meet with me, Zoe," Neil was saying over a seafood salad. "I had this idea, and I thought I could pitch it to you and see what you thought."

Zoe shrugged as she picked up a forkful of seafood salad, which she had also gotten, placed it into her mouth and indicated with the fork that he should continue.

"I have this dermatology clinic out on Long Island, they do acne treatments, Botox, some outpatient surgeries like moles, things like that. It's an investment, and that's part of the reason I'm in New York. I'm here to get a new medical director for it, which is a big title for a small job, really. Think of it as a general practice, but with fewer patients. Most of the actual work is done by the PAs and the nurses, we just need an MD to oversee the practice and do some of the surgeries."

"I don't know, Neil, it's all the way out on Long Island…"

He laughed.

"This from the girl who spent the last two years in the armpit of America?"

"Hey," she said with a smile, "it's not that bad."

"Whatever." Neil waved his hands, dismissing the subject. "There are some advantages to this job. Low pressure, unlike here." He held up his hand and ticked them off on his fingers. "You get the title, of course, a house that's owned by the corporation, ditto the Mercedes, and you get a six month contract so if you don't like it you can bail. The pay is better than what you get here, I'm sure we could work out the details."

"If this job is so good, why don't you take it yourself? It is your investment, right?"

"Ah," Neil sat up straighter in his chair as he took a sip of his ice tea, "that is the second part of why I'm in New York. I'm a Long Island boy, born and bred in Lynbrook, my wife is, or was, from Colorado. That is, she is from Colorado, she was my wife…we are separated. We started this clinic as an investment a few years ago, then moved to Colorado to expand. Long story short, the marriage fell apart and I'm back here to find a neutral third party to manage this clinic's financial affairs. My wife, my former wife, no that's not right either, my previous wife," Neil just stopped, put both hands on the sides of his head, and groaned. "what do you call someone like that? We're just separated, not divorced."

"What's her name?" Zoe asked, sipping her ice tea.

"Laura."

"You call her Laura," Zoe said with just a hint of a smile.

"Laura is doing the same in Boulder, so we can get square on the assets, and then…" Neil shrugged, one hand fluttering in the air.

"So how much are we talking?" Zoe's curiosity was piqued, if nothing else.

Neil pulled a pen and a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and jotted six figures on it. He slid it over to Zoe, who looked at it and her jaw nearly dropped.

"Annually?" Zoe asked incredulously.

Neil shook his head.

"Life of the contract, which in this case is six months. You don't like it after that, you walk away. Job starts the first of the year, coincidentally the same day your contract here runs out."

Zoe nodded.

"Let me think about it. It's a tempting offer, after all, less pressure for a change, more money."

"OK," Neil said smiling as he stood up to leave, "take all the time you need. Just don't take too long, I need someone soon in there, and there are a lot of temps around here looking for a job come the new year."

"I'll let you know tomorrow," Zoe said as she too stood up and shook hands with Neil.

When Zoe got home from the hospital that night, she went through her usual routine. She double bolted the door, hung up her coat, went into the kitchen to make her pitcher of martinis, then into the bedroom where she took off all her clothes and got into the flannel shirt, then back out to the kitchen to pour her first drink and find some music she could put on so she could pace and think. She wanted something big and bright, so she put on some Buddy Rich big band music she had just downloaded. She never would have thought she would have liked big band music, but she found Buddy Rich through Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, via Frank Sinatra of course. Everything leads back to Frank, Zoe thought lazily as the first bouncy notes came out of the speakers and she began to dance around the room.

As Zoe danced, she realized that once her job at the hospital was over, there was really nothing keeping her in New York anymore, certainly not family. She barely spoke to her mother these days, her former dad, no, Ethan, (what do you call someone like that? she asked herself) was still in Europe, and most of her friends had moved on, or at least those people she thought of as her friends before she moved to Alabama. She hadn't connected with any of them since she got back, and except maybe for Gigi, she couldn't think of any of them she really wanted to re-connect with. She was different now, and she just couldn't summon up the emotional energy to pursue any relationship that wasn't work related.

If she was honest with herself, Zoe thought, she had to admit the offer was attractive. House, car, title, money, light workload. It might be just the thing after the last few months of intensive surgery, day after day. Maybe she needed a break, Zoe thought. Too much work makes Jill a dull girl. As Zoe danced into the kitchen to pour herself another drink she had just about made up her mind to take Neil's offer. After all, sometimes these things come along for a reason. Like Alabama, for example.

That made her stop in her tracks. How did that work out for you, Zoe? Mixed results she had said. She stood in the kitchen sipping her martini for a long time. Well, you have to take chances some time, she thought to herself, maybe Long Island will be a better fit than Bluebell.

Zoe went out to the living room, and on a whim kept going into the bedroom until she walked up to the dresser and opened the top drawer. After looking through a few papers she found her passport, still good, so she went out to the living room again, sat down on the couch, and called the airport. She made reservations on a flight to Paris the next afternoon. This will be the very thing, she thought, to cheer her up over the holidays. She found Christmas a difficult time of year, since while they never had any real anniversary…

Zoe switched the music to Weather Report, a jazz fusion band from before she was born who she discovered through Miles Davis from Frank Sinatra, again. Is there a six degrees of Frank Sinatra, she wondered? She always thought of Weather Report as tropical dance music, so she bounced and bopped her way around the living room wearing only a red and black flannel shirt, determined to dance those blues away. Maybe she could squeeze in a cruise in the Greek islands, she thought to herself, then laughed out loud.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie

Ch . 8

The day that Zoe left for Paris was the day Lavon and Wade arrived in New York, so Zoe missed all the media madness that ensued when it was discovered that a former NFL star and current mayor of a small town in Alabama had been mistakenly shot by a police officer. She missed Wade almost getting arrested twice, once at the scene of the shooting, and again in the hospital ER. She missed the tension in the operating room, the photo ops later with the New York mayor apologizing to Lavon for him getting shot, and assuring tourists they don't shoot all of them in New York. She even missed the brief blurbs that some of the tabloids ran on Wade searching for his missing lost love, a doctor, but the only good visuals were Zoe's hospital ID picture. Wade didn't come off looking too good, being distracted about Lavon and trying to adjust to his meds and his fears, which hadn't gone away but only gone under the surface. None of the TV stations took that angle of the story.

Wade took up residence in Lavon's room at the hospital, rather than take advantage of the city's offer of a hotel room. He didn't want to go out. He did manage to call the hospital where Zoe worked, only to find out her contract wasn't being renewed in January, so she wasn't in now and wasn't expected back. He wanted desperately to go up to the hospital, just to ask around, but it was a long subway ride and he found he just couldn't manage it. Besides, he felt Lavon needed him.

Lavon had been shaken up pretty bad by the incident. The bullet had ricocheted off his collar bone and dug a furrow through the back of his shoulder, but what was worse was when he hit his head falling down. The doctor said it was a concussion, and they were watching Lavon carefully.

After a few days, when the doctors felt it was safe to move him, the city put Lavon and Wade on a plane back to Alabama, where an ambulance picked up the mayor of Bluebell at the Mobile airport and drove him to his front door. A wheelchair was unpacked, Lavon was placed in it, and as he waved to the crowd that had gathered to welcome him home, Wade wheeled Lavon up to the sidewalk and around to the kitchen entrance, where everything was on one level. There he was greeted by Annabeth who brought Lavon the rest of the way inside.

Wade stood outside the kitchen for a while, looking in while Annabeth made a fuss over a grinning Lavon, who was loving every minute of it, then turned and headed down to the Rammer Jammer. He felt a little more at ease under Alabama skies, it was a short walk, and he needed to stretch his legs after hours in a plane.

When Wade walked into the bar, Lemon saw him immediately and rushed right up to him. Given the look on her face, Wade was afraid Lemon was going to hug him, so he put up both hands in front of him.

"Whoa, partner!"

Lemon stopped about a foot away, her hands now dangling at her sides with no place to put them.

"I'm so sorry you didn't find her, Wade. Everybody's heard what happened, it was all over the news here, everybody thinks Lavon's a hero for going after that thief…"

"It's OK, Lemon," Wade said, "Lavon will be fine, he just needs a lot of rest right now. If he takes it easy for a few months, he'll be good as new."

"How about you?" Lemon looked at him carefully.

Wade took a deep breath.

"I feel better now than I have in days, ever since I left, in fact," Wade said after a moment's consideration.

Lemon continued to look at Wade, appraising him as interested buyer might look at a work of art, checking for flaws, assessing any possible damage, trying to ascertain its genuine-ness. It was starting to make Wade uncomfortable.

"Cut it out," Wade finally said, walking over to a table and sitting down. Lemon followed him.

"What are you going to do now?" Lemon asked.

Wade shrugged.

"I don't know."

The sat at the table in silence for a bit, both of them looking down. Finally Lemon looked up.

"You aren't giving up, are you?"

Wade shook his head.

"No, but I am back to square one."

Wade stared at the table for a minute, then pulled his chair up close, put his elbows on the table, and his head between his hands.

"You know, Lemon," Wade began, "I just don't get it. We were in New York for days…what day is it, by the way?"

"Day after Christmas, you lunk."

"Oh," Wade raised his eyebrows, he'd obviously lost track of time. "Merry Christmas, I guess."

"Mmm," Lemon grumbled. "Happy Boxing Day."

Wade just looked at her, surprised and puzzled.

"Dickens," she said, and Wade nodded as if he knew what she was talking about. "You were saying there was something you didn't get."

Wade brought his hands down and clasped them in front of him, hunched over, and did his impression of a Wade Kinsella bobble head doll.

"We were there for days, Lemon, it was all over the news. Why didn't she call? Why didn't she come to see us? I can understand not wanting to see me, but Lavon? Come on, there's something wrong there if Zoe Hart didn't rush to the bedside of Lavon Hayes after he'd been shot."

Lemon agreed.

"Either she didn't know, or she knew and didn't care."

"Or," Wade held up a finger, "she knew and she cared so much she was afraid and ran away."

"Or she didn't know and she was running away from something else," Lemon threw up her hands in exasperation, "Lord knows it doesn't take much to get that girl to run."

"You don't know anything about it!" Wade snapped at her, no trace of a smile in his voice.

Lemon clasped her hands on the table and studied her fingernails for a minute, then looked up at Wade.

"I'm sorry, that was unkind."

Wade nodded his OK.

"I still think something's not right," Wade insisted.

"You know, though, when she was being initiated as a Belle, she didn't run then," Lemon began to muse, "once she gets her stubborn hat on she will not be moved. It seems most likely she didn't know."

"I refuse to believe Zoe doesn't care, or couldn't overcome her fears to at least give Lavon a call," Wade agreed.

"So, what are you going to do?" Lemon looked him right in the eye.

Wade let out a long sigh.

"I'll let you know when I figure out what that is."

Zoe, meanwhile, did not know any of these events had occurred because she was in France. She had flown to Paris, got herself a room at a five star hotel, and lived on room service for a few days. Before she left the States, Zoe had called Neil, accepted the job and told him she'd be back just after the first of the year, checked her bank balance and was shocked to discover how much money she had. She did have direct deposit from the hospital, but she hadn't been spending any money to speak of over the last few months, and it was surprising how fast it built up, so she had no guilt at all in going on a shopping spree on her third day in Paris. Her sudden immersion in French culture brought back her high school French, and being the quick study she was, she was soon conversing with everyone in French, and contrary to popular belief, she found the French people forgiving of her attempts to speak their language.

The French were also suffering, if you wish to call it that, a Christmas-time heat wave, where the skies were blue, the winds were gentle, and the temperatures felt like a New England fall. On Christmas Day, in an effort to keep her mind off the fact that it was Christmas, she had a word with the concierge (in French, which he smilingly indulged), who secured for her a rented touring bicycle, an official French government map of bicycle tours throughout the country, a list of things to pack (again courtesy of the French government), and enough Euros to last her a week if she was reasonable. She took off.

Zoe headed south out of Paris, with a vague idea of going to Orleans and the Loire Valley beyond, she'd always heard a wine tasting tour of the region was something not to be missed. As she rode along under the sunny French skies, her mind began to clear as she got into the rhythm of pumping her legs and feeling the breeze on her face. Getting the blood moving made her feel better than she had in a long time. She didn't use the time to think, she had had enough of thinking for a while, instead she used the time to think of nothing, to just breathe and feel.

Zoe found a nice little bed and breakfast along the route, just as the government map had shown her, and after a nice little dinner at the village tavern, accompanied by a house wine that would be to die for back home, she fell into bed exhausted that night. She arose refreshed in the morning and was off again after breakfast.

Zoe reached Orleans on the second day, an ancient city on the Loire pre-dating the Romans, and stopped to linger among the old streets and shops before finding a hostel. She showered and changed, and went out looking for a good place to eat. A lot of people just smiled and shrugged as if to say 'hey, it's all good', but she managed to find a quiet little bistro that had enticing smells coming out of the front door, so she went in. She was shown a quiet little table off to the side, where she was given a menu that she waved off.

"I'll have the house special tonight, and a carafe of whatever wine goes with that," Zoe said with a beautiful smile and a wave of her hand. The waiter smiled back, gave a slight bow at her French, which she thought was improving, and hustled away. He returned quickly with her wine (red), a glass, and a small loaf of warm bread on a plate with a cup of real butter on the side. The waiter poured a bit into her a glass and stepped back, awaiting her approval. She took a sniff and a small sip. It was heavenly, and she nodded enthusiastically. The waiter smiled again and filled her glass. He left.

Zoe was famished after her ride and cut into the fresh bread eagerly. She was halfway through her loaf when the waiter seated a gentleman at a table near her and handed him a menu. It appeared he was dining alone. Zoe was feeling expansive since she was working on her second glass of wine, but the bread was giving her strength, so she cleared her throat discretely, and the man glanced up.

"Excuse me, sir," Zoe said, "but if you happen to be dining alone, perhaps you would care to join me?"

The man flashed a big smile.

"I would be delighted," he said in an English accent as he got up from his table and came over to Zoe's, sticking out his hand. "James Ellingham," he said with a smile.

Zoe shook his hand.

"Zoe Hart."

"Thank you for inviting me over," James said as he sat down across from Zoe, "saves me the trouble of glancing at you surreptitiously. You are a lovely young lady."

Zoe's eyes widened a little and she drew back slightly, wondering suddenly if she had made a mistake, but James sensed her unease and quickly smiled warmly, holding up both hands as if in surrender.

"I'm quite harmless, really. They know me around here, I bicycle through here two or three times a year, when I can, this is my favorite place. Marcel can vouch for me, can't you Marcel?" as the waiter brought him his drink.

"Oui, monsieur," he said with a grin, then turned to Zoe and spoke in English, "he will not harm you, but he will, as they say, bend your ear. Once you are through with him, mademoiselle, just tell him to go away, and he will leave you alone." Marcel finished the last with an even bigger smile.

James shrugged at her as if to say 'see, I told you so'.

"So, Zoe Hart," James took a drink, "tell me about yourself, what brings you to France, you speak French with an American accent."

"Well," Zoe said, sipping her wine and leaning back in a little, "I'm between jobs right now, and my last job got to be pretty high-pressure, so I'm here trying to relax."

"How's that going for you?" James asked.

"Really, really well," Zoe smiled.

"Good, glad to hear it," James smiled back, taking a drink, "as I say I do this route as often as I can, there is kind of a circle you take by here back around to Paris, and I do it for relaxation too. It's just so quiet pedaling along in the sun, your system awash in endorphins…"

"So what do you do that's so stressful?" Zoe asked.

"Oh," James seemed kind of embarrassed, "I'm a…surgeon…a heart surgeon…St. John's in London."

"You've got to be kidding me," Zoe said incredulously, taking a big gulp of wine. "You're THAT James Ellingham!"

It was James' turn to be surprised.

"I don't usually get that reaction…what a minute…do you know Ethan?"

Zoe nodded vigorously. Gradually James started nodding as well.

"You're THAT Zoe Hart! What a pleasure to meet you, your father has spoken a lot about you. He's very proud."

"Really," Zoe said sarcastically, "I can't remember the last time we had any contact, and before that it was years of silence."

"I think he feels bad about that," James said as the waiter brought their dinner, a kind of lamb stew for Zoe and seafood in white sauce for James, who asked for a half carafe of white wine.

"Yes, I'm sure he does," Zoe said indifferently as she began eating her stew, which was somehow beyond delicious. "So how do you know Ethan?"

"Colleagues. Not exactly friends, really, but…we cover for each other, we travel in the same circles, we're acquaintances. I know he feels bad about what happened between you two because he's told me, although I would never repeat that to anyone but you," James said as he began to eat.

After a few minutes of silence while they both savored their food, James set down his fork and grabbed his wine glass.

"Ethan has learned, as have I, how to compartmentalize his feelings so he can do his job. As is often the case, that compartmentalization bleeds over into the personal life. While I will not speak for Ethan, I will speak for my ex-wife who called me the 'coldest son of a bitch on the planet.' For some of us, and that might include you, doing the job well is all there is, and everything else, the emotional part, just eludes us."

"But that doesn't happen to everyone, right?" Zoe asked hopefully.

James shrugged.

"It's an edge."

Those words echoed in Zoe's brain all throughout the rest of the evening, which passed in quiet chit chat about the medical profession, when they said goodnight and went their separate ways, and all through Zoe's bicycle trip back to Paris. In fact, Zoe could still hear those words just before she fell asleep on the plane out of Paris back to New York, the echo and seductive allure of medicine by paperwork, of closing off everything but the area to be worked on, boxing out emotional attachments as if they didn't exist, that would give her an 'edge'.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie.

Ch. 9

When Zoe returned to the States, she went directly from the airport to the Long Island house where she would be living, a large, suburban three-bedroom, two-bath home with a built-in two car garage on a cul-de-sac off a main road in the aptly named town of Farmingville. Neil had been there on his occasional visits out on the island, so he and Zoe essentially swapped housing. He sublet her apartment in Queens, she took one of the other bedrooms in the house in the country, or as city-dwellers thought of it, potato country. To Zoe, of course, this wasn't country at all, she wasn't far from shopping, and in the time it took her to drive to Mobile from Bluebell she could take a train to the center of the universe.

Zoe found her job interesting at first. There were a lot of new things to learn, but Neil was right, it was general practice with fewer patients, and the bulk of her work was administrative. After a couple of weeks Zoe began to wonder if she was missing something, because the job seemed almost too simple. She asked Neil about it on the phone, and he laughed.

"Yeah, I think you've got it, Zoe. We need the MD to keep the practice functioning, but for some people it can be deadly dull. For others, it's a tonic. I have no doubt you could run this practice with your eyes closed, but from my point of view I need, one, a warm body who is an MD, and two, the right fit for a job that is kind of a half-time job at best for someone like yourself. Think of it as a kind of country vacation, if you will, while you decide what you really want to do."

"And why did you think I would be a good fit?" Zoe asked suspiciously.

Neil laughed.

"Because you needed, or at least wanted, a job, apparently right away, you seemed kind of on edge, and you were pretty closed up. Nice but tight."

"What?" Zoe exploded, laughing uncertainly because she thought she ought to take offense at that, but she wasn't sure why.

"Nice as in pleasant to everyone, tight as in tight with your emotions, your personal life, the way you walk…"

"What's wrong with the way I walk?" Zoe asked, getting a little more sure she was offended.

"You are rigid, you carry yourself very tightly contained, you walk, heck, you drive, like you do surgery, very precise, very sure of yourself, when you have to cut you cut, no hesitation, no wasted movements. It makes you great as a surgeon."

"I'm not great," Zoe protested.

"Maybe not yet," Neil said, "but you're young still. Take a breather for a few months, decide what you want, and go and get it. I've watched you work, Dr. Hart, you have great hands, great instincts…great talent. Pick the right up-and-coming program anywhere in the country, doctor, and you could be on top of the world in ten years."

Zoe didn't know what to say.

"Believe me," Neil went on, "when you reach my age, you not only can see fifty on the horizon, you can also see your limitations."

Those words hung there in the air for several moments, then Neil cleared his throat.

"So how about I come out this weekend and we can talk about this some more. Perhaps this wasn't what you expected?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Zoe said, not being quite sure what she should say. She was just looking for some reassurance that she wasn't botching the job by missing some important element, not a whole discussion about her career and her future, so that's where they left it.

Zoe had gotten settled in her new place fairly quickly, since she hadn't brought much with her. She got all her business clothes at Macy's, matching jackets, skirts, pantsuits, all in variations of black. Pinstripes, wide stripes, jet black, soft black, ebony. Black shirts, with and without collars. Her only concession to color was scarves. She had never worn scarves before, she this was going to be her fashion signature, she thought, the lady in black with colorful scarves. She got her bedding from Bergdorf Goodman, and she got her stereo from Rent-A-Center. She fully stocked the wet bar. It may not be home, she thought, but it would do.

When Neil arrived it was on Saturday morning when Zoe was at work, so when she got back to the house (she had a hard time thinking of it as 'home' even in its most prosaic sense) he was already there, listening to one of Zoe's Frank Sinatra CDs in the living room, listening with his eyes closed and swaying back and forth. Zoe laughed as she came through the front door.

"I see you brought my music collection."

"Yeah," Neil smiled as he saw her come in, "I thought you'd be missing these, so I brought along all your music, plus the few clothes you left behind. Your tastes are all over the place." He shook his head in astonishment.

"Actually," Zoe said, "I've spent a lot of my life without music, so in a sense I feel I'm just catching up."

Zoe hung up her coat on the coat-tree by the door (this one a little more expensive, all metal at Macy's, next time go with the wood), double-bolted the front door, and started to walk over to the bar. Neil, however, reached out and gently pulled her into him so they could dance to a slow ballad by Frank. Zoe laughed and went with it for a few steps, until they got next to the bar, where she broke away.

"I'm off-duty now, Neil, so I'm going to make myself a drink. Care to join me or is it too early for you?"

Neil continued to dance on alone.

"What are you having?"

"Vodka martini."

"Sounds good."

Zoe made a pitcher.

They sat in the living room with their drinks.

"So," Neil began, "you are worried that this job is so simple a first year med student could do it, correct?"

Zoe nodded.

"Like I said, we need an MD to head the clinic, but the routine stuff that we do is meant to be kind of the McDonalds of health care, and since modern medicine generates so much paperwork…"

"…it's all administrative," Zoe finished the sentence.

"Exactly. You know, feel free to hire an administrative assistant to do all that mundane stuff for you."

"Then what would I do?" Zoe asked as she got up to freshen her drink.

Neil shrugged.

"Anything you want." He held out his glass.

Zoe came back from the kitchen with the pitcher, filled Neil's glass, and took it back to the kitchen. She set it down carefully on the counter, turned, and stood in the doorway, holding her glass with both hands.

"Is there something I'm not getting?" she asked.

Neil stood up, gulped half his drink, and set it down.

"Only because you haven't asked," Neil said as he closed the distance between them, took Zoe in his arms, and kissed her. Somewhat to her surprise, Zoe kissed him back.

Lemon was having a hard time suppressing her laughter. The paper goods order had been screwed up, the poor truck driver was standing there with his bill of lading waiting for Wade to sign, and Wade was furious, or at least as furious as he could get on his anti-anxiety medication, which mellowed him out considerably. Where the old Wade might have been screaming at the driver and on the phone at the same time, the new Wade could only stand there and stare at the driver and hum. Lemon thought it sounded like angry humming, but he was 'humming mad' and it was just so much fun to watch she almost forgot to get the distributor on the phone.

"I appreciate all the toilet paper, I really do," Wade was saying, "but a double order of toilet paper doesn't make up for a zero order of paper napkins, you can't just swap one for the other…"

"Here, Charlie," Lemon handed the truck driver the phone, "the warehouse."

"What's so funny, Lemon?" Wade asked as they walked out to the bar together.

"You, Mr. Kinsella. Those meds must be doing one hell of a job keeping your lid on, watching you get mad now is like watching a drag racer who never gets out of first gear; you got the pedal to the metal but you're hardly getting anywhere."

"I got to do something, Lemon. I've got to go back to New York." They found a table and sat down.

"I'd go with you," Lemon said, "but for two reasons. One, it's not a good idea for both of us to be away from here for any length of time, and two, it's not a good idea for you to go get your woman with another woman at your side. Sends the wrong message."

Wade looked closely at Lemon to see if she was joking. He wasn't sure.

At that moment, Earl Kinsella walked through the door of the Rammer Jammer, spotted Wade and Lemon at the table, came over and sat down.

"Wade's itching to get back to New York, Mr. Kinsella, and I do think he'd explode if it weren't for his medication," Lemon said with a smile to the older man.

"Well, I think he's been doing real well with it so far," Earl said, beaming at his son, who shook his head.

"I'll still need someone to go with me when I go to New York," Wade said, "no matter how well I'm doing with the drugs."

"How 'bout me?" Earl asked.

"How 'bout you what, old man?" Wade muttered, keeping his eyes down.

"How 'bout I go with you to New York?" Earl asked.

"Are you serious?" Wade said in an angry tone of voice, looking up at Earl.

"Hell, yeah, I'm serious," Earl said right back in the same tone of voice, holding Wade's gaze.

Lemon kept looking from one man to the other as if they might fight, but as nothing happened she noticed that Wade had never tensed up, so that while his words might sound angry, his body language was at rest. Lemon wondered if maybe Wade had only been waiting for his father to ask, so Wade could accept and they could go, but he just had to make some noise about it first because that's what men do. No, she thought, that would mean Wade was capable of a level of deviousness and subtlety that he had so far shown no aptitude for. It was the drugs, she concluded.

"I ain't flyin'," Wade said, "I had enough of that the last time."

Earl nodded. "We'll drive then. Gives us mobility."

"You can drive?" Wade's mouth hung open. "Like, on the interstate and all, 'cause I don't remember you drivin' for some time now."

Earl just shook his head. "You kids, think you invented everything. 'Course I can drive."

"It'll be a long trip, I don't even know how long," Wade looked at his father skeptically.

"Sounds like fun," Earl grinned, "you and me on a road trip to get your woman."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Wade asked, looking from Earl to Lemon and back again.

"Saying what?" Earl asked.

"Get my woman. Lemon said it a few minutes ago. It doesn't feel like that to me, I just have to make sure she's all right. I don't expect to go up to New York and just bring her back with me."

"You don't?" Earl and Lemon said at the same time.

"No," Wade said emphatically, "she doesn't have the kind of job where you can just pick up and leave, and besides, she said it was over. I just have to know she's all right, I have a feeling she needs me."

"You're just going to drive for days, straight into the heart of winter," Lemon said in utter disbelief, "walk up to her and say 'excuse me, Zoe, but do you need me for anything?' and when she gets through laughing she'll say 'no' and you'll just turn around and come back?"

"I don't have a plan, Lemon," Wade said, almost raising his voice. "First I've got to get there, then I've got to find her."

Lemon stood up. "If you don't bring her back here, Wade Kinsella, don't bother coming back yourself, 'cause you won't be worth a damn without her." She turned and went into the kitchen.

"Well, I guess that settles that," Earl said cheerfully. "When do you want to leave?"

Wade just glowered at him.

"What's eatin' you," Earl said.

"I can't just go up and kidnap her," Wade said.

Earl shook his head.

"Don't worry about it. The witchy woman said it was going to be OK, it'll be OK."

Wade thought for a minute, then nodded.

"You're doin' this because of the witchy woman, aren't you?" Earl asked.

Wade looked at Earl. Looked at him a long time. Earl just looked back and waited.

"Maybe," Wade finally broke the silence between them, "or partly, I don't know. I mean come on, me, Wade Kinsella, chasin' after a girl…a woman. Why would I do that?" Wade lifted both his hands off the table. "I must be crazy, right? Well, I was there that night, and Clarissa was talking to me about Zoe…come to think of it, she didn't say much, it wasn't words so much as…" Wade just stopped and shook his head as if to clear it, "…I was led to believe…no, that's not right…I was made…no, that's not it either…I came away with the understanding that some day Zoe would need me, and if I could manage to be there for her…well, I guess I hoped it would make everything better and we'd be together again."

Earl just watched him.

"I can't expect that, I can't afford to believe I have a chance with Zoe, because I don't. That decision was hers to make. She made it. But Clarissa," Wade held up a finger, "allows me to hope, because Zoe…is my heart's desire." Wade just stopped as if lost in thought.

"Mmm," Earl finally broke his silence.

"So," Wade looked at Earl, "how far would you go for your heart's desire?"

"I'd go to hell and back," Earl said with a smile.

"Earl, I think you're describing New York City."


	10. Chapter 10

A/N - I sense some impatience on the part of some reviewers. I'm sorry about the delay in updating, but as I told one reviewer in a PM, this has been the hardest chapter to write so far. Bear with me, I have re-oriented myself by the fire, and since we are closer to the end than the beginning I may pick up the pace a bit. For those of you chomping at the bit, remember I warned you, but I think you'll like the finished product.

Disclaimer - Own I not this Hart of Dixie

Ch. 10

Wade walked out of the Rammer Jammer wearing his squarish sunglasses and the Panama hat Lemon had given him and carrying his duffel bag, which he threw in the back seat of his car. Earl was already behind the wheel. Wade had just opened the passenger side door when Lemon ran out of the bar. He had an urge to get in the car, but he knew what was coming and decided he should just stand up and take it like a man.

Lemon ran up to him at full speed and embraced him. Wade thought for a fleeting moment that for the fortuitous placement of his head she would have kissed him. On the mouth. She didn't, she merely gave him a very tight squeeze.

"Come back safe, all right?" Lemon said as she stepped away, holding Wade by the shoulders. Wade nodded once, and not knowing anything else to say, got in the car and they drove away.

"Let's stop by the plantation, I want to see Lavon before I go," Wade said, and Earl nodded.

When they got there Wade walked around to the kitchen entrance, rapped on the door and eased in, where he found Lavon and Annabeth.

"I'm leaving now," Wade said.

Both Lavon and Annabeth, who were sitting at the counter, looked at him sadly as if he were sailing off to the ends of the earth. Lavon was still wearing his arm in a sling to help the shoulder heal.

Finally the Mayor broke the silence. "Good luck"

Annabeth nodded her assent, then pointed to Wade's head. "Are you gonna wear that hat to New York City?"

Wade shook his head as if bothered by mosquitoes. "Lemon's idea."

"Mmm."

They stood there for a few moments, the three of them, but with nothing else to say Wade turned and went back to the car, where he took off his hat before he got in and tossed it in the back seat.

"Let's go."

"Gotta make a stop at my house then we're off," Earl said. Wade didn't say anything.

When they got there, Earl pulled up in front and ran inside, saying he'd be right back. He was, and about five minutes later they hit the road.

Neither man seemed inclined to talk. Earl just drove, Wade just looked out the window with his sunglasses on or straight ahead. They drove in silence all the way to Mobile, where they picked up the interstate and headed northeast. As Earl drove up the on-ramp he decided to break the silence.

"This engine really hums."

"It's a good car."

Silence again.

"You ever been up north?" Earl finally asked.

Wade just turned and looked at him, still with the sunglasses on.

"'Cause I was just thinkin' you'll need long johns, a parka, and gloves," Earl went on. "You've lived your life over fifty degrees, and…"

"Earl, I'm not ten, OK?" Wade snapped.

"You'll thank me later," Earl sniffed, "probably won't find any until Virginia…"

"Earl, I'm tryin' to think, OK?"

"Think about what?" Earl said casually, absent-mindedly running his hand through his hair.

"What am I going to do when I find her? Assuming I find her. Just pay attention to the road, old man."

"Wade," Earl shook his head, "you're over thinking this, and that isn't good because one, thinking isn't your strong suit, and two, the head isn't much use in matters of the heart. You'll know what to say when you see her."

"Thinking isn't my strong suit?" Wade grinned in mock outrage.

"No, it isn't. Doing is your strong suit."

They drove on for many miles in complete and comfortable silence.

"Did I ever tell you the story of the first time your mother and I met?" Earl asked, and Wade only grinned and settled himself back in his seat. His father had told this story many times, each time with a new little twist or fillip that may or may not be true but made for a colorful story, and once he had asked the question there was no stopping him from telling it. "Before you were born they had an Emporium on Front St. by the water that had two stories, and you got up to the second floor by these big wide stairs on the side of the building. I was coming up those stairs one afternoon, I'd been up since before dawn and was dog-tired, and your mama was grazing through the sale table by the top of the stairs and saw me coming up, and she just watched me come up them stairs and turn and walk right past her without even seeing her and she told me later she knew right then I was for her. She told me this after we were married. I was so shy, though…" Earl shook his head and grinned, "she practically had to paint me a sign that she was mine if I wanted her. I didn't think I had much to offer, and she was the prettiest girl in town…"

"Wait a minute," Wade laughed, "you walked right past mama without even seeing her, but she was the prettiest girl in town?"

"Oh, I saw her all right," Earl said, "but I didn't want her to know I'd seen her, bein' out of my league and all. I was never good with women like you are, son."

Wade just sat and looked out the window. He'd never thought of it like that, being good with women, he'd just smile and hand out compliments and the girls would just swoon. He assumed it worked that way for every man. Why be nervous with this girl when another girl would be coming along any minute? But Zoe could make him nervous. In fact, Wade realized, if Zoe had asked him to stand on his head and spit nickels, he would try, and this was in large part why he was going to New York. Because Zoe made him nervous.

They met up with I-95 in Virginia, where it began to rain, a cold steady rain with temperatures in the mid 40s. They pulled off the interstate in Virginia near a Wal-Mart so they could get long johns, parkas and gloves, and they had a sit-down meal at a Pizza Hut, which was a welcome change from the road snacks they had been filling up on. Because of the weather, though, by the time they got to New Jersey Earl was sneezing and starting to cough, and by the time they got to Zoe's hospital Earl was shivering so bad he could hardly drive. They managed to get the car into long term parking and Earl down to the ER, where the doctors said he was coming down with pneumonia and they admitted him.

Once they got Earl in a regular bed upstairs from the ER, the doctor, a youngish looking man a hair shorter than Wade but much wider, giving the impression not so much of bulk as of solidity, stepped out into the hallway to talk to Wade.

"Mr. Kinsella, Dr. Finelli, I'm treating your dad."

"Call me Wade, he's Earl," Wade said, nodding back toward his father.

Dr. Finelli did a kind of double-take when he heard the name, then went on.

"Earl," Dr. Finelli said carefully, "is presenting with the early stages of bacterial pneumonia. If he were a young man in good health otherwise, I might send him home with a scrip for antibiotics and orders for bed rest, but his system is weakened because of his alcoholism. If it was my dad, I'd want him here."

Wade looked at his work boots.

"How long?"

"Not long, 72 hours tops."

"How am I supposed to pay for this?"

Dr. Finelli just stood there looking at him for a minute.

"Pardon me for asking this, but I couldn't help but notice your accent, and I'm guessing you're not from around here. You wouldn't be from Bluebell Alabama, would you?"

It was Wade's turn to stare. Dr. Finelli took that as a yes.

"You know Zoe Hart, don't you?" the doctor went on, and Wade nodded, still mute. "You're the guy."

"What?" Wade said.

"You're the guy," Dr. Finelli said, shaking his head. "Pleasure to meet you, sir. Enzo Finelli, Brooklyn, New York." He stuck out his hand, and Wade shook it. The doctor's hands were so big Wade thought it was like shaking hands with a catchers mitt. "We're very working-class in Brooklyn."

Wade looked bewildered, so Enzo smiled and went on.

"I assisted on some of her operations, I'm an intern here and got her a couple of times on my surgical rotation. God, she has beautiful hands, don't you think? Not like these babies," he help up his own hands and laughed, "I don't think surgery is in my future, but man, she was great to watch, and she's got that surgeon ice-queen bitch thing DOWN. No offense, though." He took a step back as if maybe he had offended Wade, but it only made Wade smile. She did have that.

"So, like I said, great at work, but after work, my God, I think she was the saddest girl I ever knew. She didn't talk much, kept things neutral, light, but she was like that kid in the Peanuts cartoon with the cloud always over his head. I figured it was a guy, she mentioned a name once, Wade Kinsella, so I just put you and her together."

Wade nodded sadly.

"Have you come for her?" Enzo asked. Wade shrugged. "I haven't seen her since the first of the year, she might have been one of those temps they had to let go. I'll ask around for you. Listen," Enzo leaned in, "it's late, you got a double room here with your dad, I can see you're beat, sack out here tonight. Tomorrow's another day, and maybe I'll have something for you by then. Don't worry about the rest of it, this is a big hospital, things happen," Enzo said cryptically as he turned and left.

Wade walked back into Earl's room and sat down heavily on the other bed. Earl appeared to be sleeping peacefully, an oxygen cannula up his nose and an IV anti-biotic drip attached to his arm. Wade thought Earl looked pretty helpless, and he felt like Earl looked, trapped and helpless. This was the second time, Wade raged at himself, that he had gotten to New York and he was again being thwarted. He shook his head as he lay back on the pillow and put his feet up on the bed. Not this time, he said to himself, I'm not being stopped this time. But Enzo was right, he was beat, if he could just close his eyes for just a few minutes…

It seemed like just a few minutes later, although it was really the next morning, when Enzo came back into Wade's room with the good news.

"I've got an address for you, or at least it's a possibility," Enzo said to Wade as he started to retract the curtain around Wade's bed. "Here," he handed Wade the piece of paper with the address and phone number of the clinic on it. Or rather, he would have handed it to him if Wade had been able to take it, because as he sat up and reached out his hand, he got a stricken look on his face.

"I can't see!"

Zoe had settled into a routine after that first night with Neil. Routines helped to calm her nerves, which she found occasionally to take off on her without warning. She would arrive at work around nine, sit in her office until eleven, take a two hour lunch with two or three martinis and some food to settle her stomach, then come back to the office until four, when she would take off again ostensibly for the house, but actually to a local watering hole where she could catch happy hour and not be disturbed. She'd call ahead for take-out and have it delivered to the house in the cul-de-sac just a few minutes after she arrived, still in her work clothes. She'd take the food into the kitchen, make a pitcher of martinis while the food cooled a little, and she'd change out of her work clothes into the secret flannel shirt, underwear optional. She'd then get into some serious drinking. The only variable was when Neil was there, then they would drink together and have sweaty, desperate sex. Zoe found this satisfactory, since by now she was pretty emotionally numb. She never wore the flannel when Neil was there, that was a rule she made for herself. He liked long flowing nightgowns he could take off and little baby-doll nightgowns he could leave on.

On nights that Neil was not there, Zoe mostly played music and danced in the living room. She couldn't find anything on television that amused her anymore. She found crime shows only exhibiting the worst of human behavior, comedies were idiots being idiots at high volume, and romances were insipid and a lie. Truth was, she fumed, you don't get the man of your dreams because there is no such thing. That's a fantasy that people construct to counter the utter emptiness at the core of their lives.

The winter had turned into what Zoe quickly came to regard as Long Island gray. It might be windy with the gray clouds scudding overhead, ripped into tatters to reveal only more gray clouds, or sometimes deadly calm with fog, so quiet and still it was otherworldly. Her moods began to match the season, which for Long Island was unseasonably warm and wet and for Zoe was just cold and damp and dreary.

Zoe's musical whims had taken her to Miles Davis a couple of times now, in different contexts. In computer parlance, she linked with 'Kind of Blue' thanks to Frank Sinatra, 'In a Silent Way' via 80s fusion music, and she found the chaos of 'Bitches Brew' by way of, strangely enough, the psychedelic music of Jefferson Airplane, then the Grateful Dead, and thence to Carlos Santana, and if we were playing Six Degrees of Frank Sinatra that would be five.

When Zoe had hit the right level, she could find the rhythms in the chaos of 'Bitches Brew' that she couldn't hear when she was sober, and the dancing and twirling became almost dervish-like. Stretching her boundaries even further, Zoe found Miles Davis music from the 70s and 80s that suited her angry moods, her pensive moods, when she was in a rage, even one song that was perfect for rough sex, although she never dared experiment with that with Neil, only when she was alone. Those were the only releases she allowed herself, dancing and expressing her mood when she was drunk, and masturbation. She didn't always orgasm with Neil, a fact she attributed to the booze sometimes. She never had any trouble pleasuring herself, however.

Zoe had made no progress at all in figuring out her future, but she thought there was time for that. Right now she was perfecting the art of living alone, and she was finding it easier and easier to find that space within her that was cold and quiet and still.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie, and any medical references in this story are not meant to imply that I know what I'm talking about.

Ch. 11

Zoe's days had become a blur as the unseasonably warm Long Island winter continued, with its soft warm rains brought up the coast by tropical winds contrasting with the driving cold rain the north winds carried. The temperature and ferocity of the winds were on a see saw, but it remained a wet gray, for the time being all color or even hope of color had been washed away. The entire island felt like it was awash, and neither the streets nor the air felt really dry even during those brief periods when the sun came out. She did her morning and afternoon hours at the clinic, took her long lunches with a hardback book (biographies these days, she had lost interest in fiction), and went back to the house on the cul-de-sac.

It was still the house on the cul-de-sac to her, or sometimes the 'Farmingville house', but occasionally she would slip and call it 'home' to herself. The word held no resonance for her, the house she lived in was not her home by any means, it was owned by her employer, the word merely shorthand for a place to be, away from the rest of the world. It was a place she could arrange to make her safe, and did not have to include any emotion she did not allow. It was the place where her secrets were kept because that was the unspoken rule.

Zoe was finding it harder and harder to summon up the emotion of sadness through her music, the songs she had sought out before were no longer interesting or evoked the right emotion. She did find a lot of songs that perfectly matched her anger, however, and the drunker she would get and the angrier the songs would get the better she would like it. She would play her punk and post-punk collection at high volume to the point that even Zoe thought she ought to turn it down. She then went out and bought the connectors for wireless headphones so she could crank the music and not set off car alarms three blocks away. She thought anger was a lot more satisfying emotion than sadness.

Zoe had become accustomed to the trappings of success on Long Island, the Mercedes, the expensive home, but she was not enamored of them. She felt detached from them, and while she appreciated the conveniences they afforded, it was as if the car and the house were there for someone else and Zoe only borrowed them, without consequences. She felt no ownership, no attachment.

Zoe had also become accustomed to Neil, who would show up every four or five days, stay for a day or two, and go back to the city. At first she found the physical affection pleasant enough, but quite soon she discovered Neil was not an imaginative lover, and was in fact quite predictable. She felt toward Neil the way she felt toward the trappings of her job…no ownership, no attachment. He seemed a nice enough man, if perhaps a little dull. He was separated, they were getting a divorce, he was definitely not the man of her dreams, but the sex seemed to make him happy. There were times, though, Zoe had to admit, that she resented Neil's intrusion into her privacy, with all his petty little grievances and his puny little needs. It was usually at this point that Zoe poured herself another drink.

One weekend in late February Neil arrived driving what looked like a brand new red Mustang. He was wearing a muted gray suit with a red tie that matched the car. His shoes were shined. He walked up to the front door, opened it without knocking, and came in.

Zoe had just gotten home from work a little while before and was still wearing her work clothes; a small plain black sleeveless dress, black stockings, and a small black jacket with three quarter length sleeves, accented by a crimson silk scarf. So far her concession to being home had been to kick off her high heels. She was holding her second martini. She looked inquiringly at Neil from the couch.

"Cocktail?"

Neil looked at Zoe a little nervously and grinned.

"Sure."

Zoe waved toward the kitchen. "In the fridge there's a pitcher."

Neil walked into the kitchen, poured his drink and took it back out to the couch, where he sat down next to Zoe. He gulped a little of the drink and set it down on the coffee table.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Zoe sat, slowly sipping her drink and watching Neil, without expression. He went on.

"There's been a settlement."

Zoe cocked her head, not understanding what Neil was saying but beginning to feel a foreboding.

"A settlement?" Zoe repeated.

"Yes, a settlement, my wife and I, Laura and I…we're dissolving the business, consolidating in Colorado, and, uh, Laura and I are…getting back together. I'm leaving New York."

"When?" Zoe said, now completely stunned.

Neil looked at his watch.

"Um, actually…now."

"So that's it, Zoe it's over, thanks for the laughs, I'm outta here?" Zoe said as she sat up straight on the couch and set her drink down on the coffee table.

"Look Zoe, I'm sorry," Neil said as he reached over and grabbed his glass, picked it up and drained it. "I never meant for it to be this way. Laura and I just got to talking…maybe the first time in years we've talked…I've really grown to care about you…I thought it was all over when I left Colorado…"

Zoe just sat on the couch, staring at the coffee table like a calf whose nose has just had its first encounter with an electric fence.

"How long?" Zoe said dully.

Neil stood up.

"The clinic is closed as of now, the house and car are assets of the new corporation in Colorado, although I gather a lot of the downstairs furniture is not. Whoever we lease that from will be by to pick it up sometime, I don't know when. I'm just going to grab some things from upstairs and be off."

A few minutes later Neil hustled downstairs with a small bag carrying whatever it was he had left in the house that was sufficiently important to come back for. He paused by the open front door.

"Use the house and car as long as you need to. You'll be paid the full face value of the contract, but part of the settlement was you had to go."

"Laura?" Zoe asked with a raised eyebrow from the couch, with a fresh drink in her hand.

Neil nodded. "Laura." He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Zoe sat still as she heard the Mustang start up and drive away, then looked at her watch. She still had time to make it to the mall, where the liquor store closed at 4 on Saturday and she could pick up some groceries across the way. She was still having trouble remembering that liquor laws in New York were different than Alabama. She got her shoes back on, put on a raincoat (black of course), and headed out in the Mercedes.

She got ice cream, chips, salsa, peanuts, chocolate chips, cheese, eggs, bread, frozen mini-pizzas, frozen egg rolls, and two half gallons of vodka, because liquor stores were closed on Sunday in New York. She piled this all in the back of the Mercedes and headed back to the Farmingville house.

When she arrived, the guys from the furniture moving place had already come by and loaded their truck. The driver was just about to close the door on his moving van when Zoe came up to him.

"Sorry, lady, we got orders to pick this stuff up," the driver said.

"OK," she nodded sadly, and began unpacking the car as the truck drove away. When she got inside, she found the stereo was still there, although sitting on the carpet, and there was no other furniture in the living room at all. The easy chairs, the recliner, the footstools, the coffee table, the couch, the lamps, all were gone. The room was as empty as a miser's heart.

After she got all her things inside the house, Zoe took off her raincoat and went upstairs. The beds in all the bedrooms were gone, but the mattresses and box springs remained. The bedding remained, still on the mattresses. The bathroom was untouched. Zoe went back to her bedroom, took off her work clothes and hung them up, and put on her secret flannel. Before she buttoned the shirt, she shpritzed a little cologne between her breasts, then she padded downstairs barefoot.

Zoe, who always followed protocol, went to the kitchen and made a pitcher of martinis. It had been some time, she mused, that she had used the little silver shot measure that came with the set. She could tell by feel, by weight, by sound, by smell, exactly how much vodka should go in the pitcher, and since she had acquired the speed pourer for the vermouth (in actual fact she had stolen it one night from a bar she had never been in before or since, when she spotted her brand of vermouth sitting in a tray just below her at the bar with a speed pourer in it, so she scooped it up when no one was looking, put it in her bag, finished her drink and left), a few waves of the bottle over the pitcher, one-two-three, could make something so cool, delicious, refreshing and numbing that it could practically put her in a trance, which it often did.

Hours later, Zoe was brought out of that trance by a knocking at the door. Billie Holiday was on the stereo. She had exhausted herself earlier in the evening with two of her jazz favorites that she had only recently discovered the underlying rhythms to, so she could dance and twirl in time to the overarching chaos of the music. It had taken a lot out of her and she found Billie Holiday restful. Zoe thought as she stood up to go to the door that she would put on some Frank Sinatra when she got rid of this person. She looked through the keyhole and couldn't believe what she saw, so she opened the door.

"You!"

"It's what we in the doctor business call 'hysterical blindness'," Dr. Finelli said as he pulled off his gloves and threw them away. Wade was still sitting on the bed as he had been for Enzo's examination.

"So there's no physical reason why I can't see," Wade said.

Enzo nodded. "That's right, there is no physical reason. However, given what you've told me about your recent medical history…ah, agoraphobia, panic attacks, impotence?...just guessing here" Enzo glanced at Wade, who nodded, "now this, it's all part of a pattern. Bad news is, we don't know what's causing it, good news is, it'll go away by itself sooner rather than later."

"How long do I have to be…like this?" Wade asked, refusing to admit he was blind.

"Hard to say," Enzo mused, "anything beyond 72 hours would be extraordinary, more typically 48 hours or less, but you're under so much stress…you're still taking your anti-anxiety meds?"

"Yeah, for all the good it's doin'."

"You're not at home quivering in your closet like a scared little girl, so I'd say it's doing its job," Enzo said bluntly.

Wade just sat still for a minute. "Is it that bad?"

Enzo started to nod his head, then realized Wade couldn't see him and smiled, "Yeah, it's that bad. There's a reason why your body is reacting this way, you and I don't know what it is, but that doesn't make it any less real."

"What do I do?"

"Wait. Meditate. Relax. Take the pressure off."

Wade just laughed.

"OK, then, tell me about Zoe," Enzo said. "I'm dying to here this."

Wade laughed again. "What are you talking about?"

It was Enzo's turn to laugh. "Well, of course you know how she looks, right, so I thought I'd ask her out, I'd heard she was single, and if you could accept that she was the dictator in the OR, she was real nice, so I thought what the heck. She was nice about it, we went out for drinks a couple of times, but she told me I wasn't her type. One night, being a wise ass, I asked her who was her type, and she described you, my friend."

Wade just sat totally still, being unable to see he was concentrating on Enzo's voice, but he could also hear in the background the noises of the hospital corridor outside and the anti-septic smells of the room around him became more vivid, could almost tell him where things were if he gave it some thought.

"I mean, she didn't use any names, but her description…you are the definitely the guy."

"I'm hoping to find her," Wade said simply.

"And then what? You're not a stalker or anything like that, right?"

Wade smiled and shrugged.

"No, I'm not a stalker. I just know…I need her, and I think, I hope, she needs me, and my instinct tells me she needs me now."

Enzo exhaled a big breath. "I wish I could help you, but my best advice is to stay here, rest, and wait it out."

Wade nodded, closed his eyes and sighed.

Enzo reached over and stuffed a slip of paper in Wade's shirt pocket. "Here's the address of the clinic where I think Zoe might be working, and its phone number. When you're ready you can head out there. Right now I've got to check on your…Earl…and then some of my other patients. I'm here a lot, so just page me if you need me." With that Enzo touched Wade's shoulder, went around the curtain to make sure Earl was resting comfortably, checked his vitals, and left.

Wade just sat still on the hospital bed, his hands in his lap, wondering what to do next. If he could see he would get out of the clothes he was in, take a shower, and put on something clean, but he didn't even know if there was a shower in the bathroom, much less where it was.

As Wade sat there, bewildered, he heard someone come in the room and go over to his father's side, where it sounded like they were checking his chart, things Dr. Finelli had just done moments before. Then that person came around the curtain to Wade's side.

"Earl looks to be resting comfortably, he's getting painkillers, he couldn't be in a better place," said a familiar voice.

"Clarissa?"

"I see your memory is as good as ever," she said warmly. "Get up, get your coat, we're leaving. Leave the car keys with Earl, Enzo will take care of it for you until we get back."

Wade did as he was told.

"Here," Clarissa said, "sit down in this wheelchair, regulation for leaving the hospital."

After putting on his parka, Wade sat, and Clarissa proceeded to wheel Wade down the hall and to the elevator. He noticed as they went down the hall people stepped aside, and there were whispers of 'good afternoon, doctor' once they got to the elevator. They went to the main lobby, and then out to the street, where Clarissa put a pair of squarish sunglasses in Wade's lap, and when he had put them on, helped him to stand up.

"We're leaving the wheelchair here," she explained. "Take my hand."

Wade gave her his hand, and they walked down the street to the subway.

"Just don't let go of my hand," Clarissa whispered, and Wade nodded vigorously.

They went down several flights of stairs, got on a train, and sat for quite a while, just rocking back and forth as the train rumbled on, the rhythm of the wheels almost hypnotic in their regular irregularity. As they sat holding hands, Wade finally broke the silence.

"Are you dressed as a doctor?"

Clarissa just laughed.

"People see what they want to see."

Wade waited, but Clarissa didn't elaborate. Finally, she stood up.

"This is our stop, we have to transfer."

Wade stood up with her, they got off the train and went up a flight of stairs, waited a few minutes, and another train pulled in and they got on.

As they settled into their seats, which were upholstered benches and not plastic stadium seating, Wade asked, "So what are people seeing now?"

Clarissa chuckled. "Well, that young girl over there sees a couple very much in love, holding hands and casting longing gazes into each others eyes, because she has romance on her mind. That man over there," she nodded in his direction, although Wade couldn't see it he could feel her nod, "in the American Legion cap, he sees a young man and his seeing eye dog." Wade turned abruptly toward the sound of her voice, which was full of amusement, as she brought her other hand to Wade's free hand. "Feel this," she said, and Wade felt dog fur and dog claws on his leg. Clarissa laughed softly. "He's wondering what theater of operations you lost your sight in."

Wade sat very still, not knowing what to think.

Clarissa leaned close to him and whispered, "It's all right, Wade, I won't steer you wrong," and he immediately relaxed. They sat in silence on the train for what seemed like hours.

At last they came to the end of the line, for Clarissa stood up and said, "We're here."

They got off the train, Clarissa called a cab, and when it arrived she gave an address and they climbed in. When they got to their destination, Clarissa paid the cab and walked Wade up to the front door.

"Now remember," Clarissa said, "you'll have to take her there, she can't find it on her own."

Wade waited for a moment, but as it seemed as if he was now alone, he swept his arms around looking for Clarissa. He didn't find her, but he did find the front door, so arranging himself as best he could, blind and in day-old clothes, he knocked on the door. He thought he heard music in the background. He waited, beginning to wonder if he should knock again, when he heard the swoosh of the door opening, and an instant later a scent so ingrained in his store of beautiful memories as to be permanent washed over him like the first breath of spring. It was the smell of him on her, and Wade knew without a shadow of a doubt that Zoe Hart was standing in front of him. He started forward when the sound of her voice stopped him.

"You!" she exclaimed, and in a sudden fit of blind fury she slammed the door in his face, and, poor Wade, being blind, and like so much in the rest of his life, he never saw it coming.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Hart of Dixie

Ch. 12

Wade had stepped forward a little when he heard the door open and he picked up their scent, so instead of breaking his nose, the door slammed into Wade's steel toed boot. It didn't hurt, but it did scare him, coming out of nowhere as it did, and he let loose a reflexive 'hey' as the heavy door kind of shuddered and bounced back. Frustrated that the door didn't slam, Zoe grabbed it on the rebound and swung it back for another go, but decided instead to forego demonstrations of anger and go right to the source. She stood there, dressed only in her flannel, hair mussed, eyes unfocused, swaying slightly, all five foot nothin', absolutely quivering with rage.

"What the FUCK are you doing here!" Zoe screamed at him.

This was not at all the reaction Wade was expecting, especially since Zoe hardly ever swore. Even when they were together and she was really mad at him, she didn't speak like this, and he didn't have any visual cues to guide him, so he just stood there with his mouth open trying to think of something to say. Zoe said it for him.

"Well, you might as well come in and join the rest of my nightmares," Zoe said while shuffling back and to the side, attempting to be graceful and attempting to bow, which she only managed about halfway. Wade came in.

Zoe stepped around Wade to close the door, then pivoted and put her arm through his and hugged him to her.

"Let's go in the kitchen, I found a couple stools in the basement."

Again, Wade was completely mystified, but he allowed her to guide him into the kitchen, apparently, where she plopped him down on one of those stools, then steered herself over to the fridge.

"Getcha somethin' to drink?" Zoe peered around at Wade while she opened the fridge.

"Nah, thanks, I'm good," Wade said, thinking it sounded like Zoe was drunk, he had been on his best behavior with the meds, and he wouldn't know where to put anything anyway because he couldn't see where the table or counter was.

"I'm gonna freshen up in honor of your arrival," Zoe shook her head emphatically as she pulled out the pitcher of martinis and filled her glass on the counter, "you wouldn't believe the day I've had." She put the pitcher back, closed the door, picked up her drink and began pacing in the kitchen without even looking at Wade. "My job was shit-canned, the bastard took all my furniture, and I've got to get out ASAP."

"Tough day," Wade said neutrally, trying to soak it all in. Damn it, he thought, I really need my eyes.

"Damn right," Zoe said, still pacing, "It's just one crappy thing after another, and it all started with you."

"What!" Wade was puzzled, this still couldn't be about that, could it?.

"That's when things started to go haywire, Wade, after you cheated on me!"

Wade just sat there. She sounded pretty angry, he thought, maybe it would be better just to let her blow off steam, so he just cupped his hands, pursed his lips, and stared at his shoes, if he could have seen his shoes.

"Have I told you that was the worst thing anyone ever did to me? Of course I have," Zoe sounded like she was getting wound up now, "but have I told you LATELY that was the worst thing anyone ever did to me? 'Cause it's still the worst thing anyone ever did to me." Zoe stopped her pacing long enough to take a sip of her drink and stare at Wade for a moment.

Wade sighed. "I know. I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry. I will go to my grave regretting that." He didn't see the point in asking for forgiveness, that would either come or it wouldn't.

Zoe kept staring at Wade, who kept staring at his shoes. To Zoe, it appeared he was hanging his head. To Wade, it felt like he needed to keep his blindness from Zoe for as long as he could. He wasn't sure what her reaction would be, but he wouldn't be able to endure her pity.

"So, you said something about your job? What is it you do here?" Wade tried to change the subject.

"Did," Zoe muttered, taking another hit of her drink, "the operative word is 'did'. I was the medical director of a dermatology clinic here in town."

"And what town is that?" Wade asked, looking up and glancing around as if he could determine where he was by sight.

"Farmingville," Zoe said.

"Where is that on the island?" Wade tried to keep her going by reciting facts, maybe the answers would help him.

"We're out quite a ways, maybe three quarters of the way to Montauk," Zoe said, waving her free arm vaguely in the air as if to indicate the way to the eastern end of Long Island.

"You like it out here in the country?" Wade asked, smiling, knowing full well Zoe didn't think of this as country any more than he would if he could see it.

"No, it sucks, it rains all the time," Zoe complained as she drained her drink and oozed over to the fridge to get the pitcher. "So," she opened the door, grabbed the pitcher, filled her glass, replaced the pitcher, and turned, letting the door close itself, "how have you been, you miserable bastard you?"

Feeling her eyes on him, Wade avoided eye contact and looked at the floor again.

"Miserable."

"Good." She took a drink.

"How have you been?" Wade countered, still pointing his head toward the floor.

"Good."

"Liar," Wade said immediately.

"What!" Zoe sputtered.

"I know you better than that," Wade said quietly, "I know things aren't going well for you now, you've told me that, but it seems to me things haven't gone well for a while now."

"You don't know squat, mister," Zoe blurted out aggressively, "if you knew me you wouldn't have done what you did."

"No, you've got it wrong. I chose that particular way of getting at you BECAUSE I knew how much it would hurt. I had to get rid of you quick because I had fallen so hard. It was a life-changing moment and I fucked it up because that's what I always do, and if I put it off any longer it was just going to hurt more when I lost you, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I lost you."

"You never would have had to lose me, you stupid SOB," Zoe yelled at Wade, "when I gave you that god dam sign, I was trying to tell you I loved you, without actually using the words."

"And how was I supposed to know that!" Wade snarled, risking looking up to where he thought Zoe might be. "I'm dumb as a post, you've told me that enough, so you have to use the words."

Zoe had started pacing again and wasn't looking at Wade, who in fact wasn't looking at her either, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Why did you have to hurt me like that, Wade?" Zoe said as she walked back and forth in the kitchen.

Wade just sighed and looked back at the floor. He was guilty, he was admitting it, there was nothing more to say.

Zoe took a break from her pacing to walk out to the living room, where she planned on fixing the music, since the previous album had ended. Wade stood up and followed her scent.

"As you can see, they took all the furniture this afternoon, so just sit anywhere, it's pretty much all the same," Zoe said as she walked over and put her mp3 on shuffle and turned down the volume and the lights. By the time she turned around Wade was already seated cross-legged on the carpet in the middle of the floor, and it was now dark enough that Zoe couldn't tell what Wade's eyes were focusing on, if anything, even when she was sitting right in front of him, as she was now. Wade's nose told him she was there.

"So tell me, Zoe Hart," Wade began, using her name for the first time, "what's new in your life?"

"I told you, my job is verschitten, I gotta move, and my boss is going back to his wife."

"What's that last part again?"

Zoe had brought her drink, which she had set on the carpet next to her. She picked it up as the music started softly in the background. Muddy Waters, oh great, she thought, the blues. 'Forty Days and Forty Nights'. Jeez. She took a drink and sat cross-legged in front of Wade, holding the glass with both hands, head down, not saying anything. After a minute or so, she looked up.

"Actually, I don't even think you're really here, you're just one more memory to torment me tonight, this has been a really shitty day, the real actual human being we know as Wade Kinsella wouldn't be here now, couldn't be here now. How would you even know? How could you possibly know?" Zoe leaned back, raised her free arm to the ceiling as if in supplication, and let her eyes follow it. Then she dropped them.

"Know what, doc?" The dam was broken, Wade could now use her name again, even her nickname.

"Anything. Everything."

Wade could tell by the sound of her voice she was ready to break, and he longed to be able to take her in his arms and comfort her, just by that sound alone. A diversion.

"Uh, doc, there's a few things you should know, but I don't want you to freak out or anything, everything's OK. Lavon is recovering…"

"Oh, my God, what happened to Lavon?"

"Doc, I told you, it's OK, he's recovering, he's gonna be fine. He was shot…"

"He was shot! My God, Wade, why didn't you tell me? What's the matter with you!" Zoe sat up a little bit to give Wade a playful slap on the side of the head, or maybe not so playful, but of course Wade never saw it coming, and WHAP, he was lying on the carpet.

Zoe started to laugh. "That proves it, you're a ghost, the real Wade would never let me do that. Here, let me help you up, ghost of Wade." She set her glass down on the carpet, reached over and grabbed Wade's arm. She pulled him up, and Wade got himself re-settled, and rubbed the side of his head where Zoe struck him.

"What's the matter with YOU, doc?" Wade complained, "you're not yourself tonight."

"Yeah, well, neither are you, Wadester," Zoe said as she leaned over and poked Wade in the chest with her finger. "Although you certainly feel real enough. There's one way we could find out how real you are." Wade started to get a sinking feeling as he rubbed his chest where Zoe had poked him. "We could fuck. Then I'd know. I'd know the real thing, yessir I would. Mattresses are upstairs, wanna go for it, ghost of Wade, or are you too insubstantial?"

"Yah got me there, doc. I'm a ghost."

"I knew it," Zoe laughed and slapped her knee. "Had to be, had to be. Nobody's timing's that good."

"Humor me, doc," Wade thought he'd better keep her talking, "what do you mean?"

"You're always there. You're like the Lone Ranger, riding to my rescue, I could always count on you, even when I didn't know it. Even when I didn't know what I needed. God Wade, why did you do it?" Zoe took a drink to try and stop the tears. Wade just sat there, aching to reach out and hold her hand.

"I was pushing you away before it was too late, but it was already too late, and when I hurt you I hurt myself."

They sat in silence while Robert Johnson sang about the crossroads.

"You said Lavon was shot," Zoe finally said.

"Yeah, we were in New York, just arrived in fact, around Christmastime, this kid lifted my wallet and Lavon ran after him and the cops shot him, thinking he was a bad guy or something. Cracked collar bone, minor flesh wound, concussion. We got an official apology from the mayor of New York." Wade smiled a little.

"What were you doing in New York?"

Wade just raised an eyebrow at that.

"Oh," Zoe said. "When was this?"

"Just before Christmas, aren't you listening, doc?"

"Hmm," Zoe mused, "seems I would have heard about that, must have been when I went to France."

"You went to France?" Wade asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I went over the holidays just to get away. My contract hadn't been renewed and I was in a funk. Met one of my father's colleagues in a little bistro in Orleans, we had a wonderful dinner and a very nice chat. Did a quick little bike tour in the Loire Valley, it was beautiful. Thought about taking a Greek cruise, see if history would repeat itself, but…" Zoe shrugged and drained her glass, while Wade was thinking a trip to Europe was far beyond his ability to pay for, bartender or bar owner, but at least it was good to know now.

"But you say he's OK now?" Zoe went on as she came back to the present. Wade thought she was starting to drift.

"Yeah, yeah, Annabeth's takin' real good care of him, which he's eatin' up, by the way, you ought to see those two together."

"Wow, I really miss those guys," Zoe said, sighing, as she got up to go to the kitchen. "So, ghost of Wade, you say Wade's been miserable, tell me about it, because I've been pretty miserable myself." Wade could hear her open the fridge, pour a drink, set the pitcher back and the door close, then he smelled her returning to the living room.

"Yeah, Wade's been pretty miserable," Wade said, thinking to himself that he never would have believed he would have found a use for referring to himself in the third person, as Lavon often did. He felt the air stir and their soft aroma descend as she sat down across from him.

"How miserable?" Zoe asked as she took a sip of her drink. Wade was beginning to lose count. "'Cause I really want him to suffer."

"Oh, he's suffering," Wade nodded his head, "I can assure you of that. I could tell you stories," he snorted, not really expecting Zoe to take him up on that.

"So tell me."

Wade sighed. "Lemon's been holding things together at the Rammer Jammer for a while now, I just…Wade can't make up his mind about anything, really. Wade's been kinda feelin' sorry for himself, fulfilling the lowest expectations of people…well, almost every one. But Wade's had a lot of help from his friends, and loved ones who didn't give up on him when he was ready to give up on himself, and that's how I'm here."

"Like some sort of ghost of Christmas past or something?" Zoe snickered and took a sip of her martini.

"No, I'm trying to tell you I never would have made it here without Lavon, and Lemon, and my dad, they all helped me because they knew I needed to do this. I had to find you, Zoe, because I needed to know you were all right, and I knew I wasn't, and I never would be unless I knew. I love you, Zoe Hart, with every fiber of my being, and I think you love me too, and I need to know." Wade didn't need eyes to know where to look.

Zoe started to shake and put her hands in front of her mouth.

"I've told you, I can't risk that, you destroyed me Wade," Zoe said as the tears started to fall.

"You can't risk that!" Wade scoffed, getting a little angry now. "People in love risk everything, all that they are, all they own, all they think and feel and desire, every day! Every day, Zoe, and with any luck they risk it every day for the rest of their lives, together!"

Zoe just sat, crying quietly in front of Wade, seeing the man she knew in her heart of hearts she loved more than anything, through a haze of tears, a man who had ridden to her rescue so many times she had begun to count on it, and when she felt she couldn't anymore she had just gone to pieces with only the slimmest of hopes that he would even be able to find her, much less help put her back together.

Wade thought maybe he'd better bore in.

"Lavon was shot helping me try to find you. Right this minute, Earl is lying in your hospital in New York City with pneumonia, because he helped me come to New York to find you. And why did I need help, you might ask? Because I was having panic attacks, I physically could not leave the Rammer Jammer for weeks on end."

"Agoraphobia, panic attacks?" Zoe repeated.

"Nothing was working right, my mind, my body…I couldn't think, couldn't decide…"

Zoe sniffed, wiping her tears with her hand

"Impotence?" Zoe inquired gently, and Wade just growled. "Kinda goes with the territory." Zoe suddenly cocked her head. "Have you had any other symptoms?"

Wade took a deep breath and nodded.

"Met a colleague of yours at the hospital, Dr. Finelli, he said I have hysterical blindness, but it should…"

"Oh, my God," Zoe got to her knees in front of the Wade, the tears flowing again as she reached over and tilted his head back to look into his eyes. "Can you see me?"

Wade sadly shook his head, and Zoe started to shake again.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" Zoe kept repeating, tears streaming down her face like a river. She wiped them away with her hand and stroked Wade's forehead wetly, bringing her face up close to him and kissing his now closed eyes, the tears running down her face and his, as if they were both crying. As Zoe pulled back to touch Wade's face, he opened his eyes and saw her, wearing her secret black and red checked flannel shirt embedded with both their scents, eyes red and wet, hair disheveled, thinner and paler than he remembered, in a dark empty room except for the stereo off to the side, and he knew without a doubt what he had to do.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie, y'all.

Ch. 13

Drive.

It was as if someone had spoken it aloud in the nearly empty room, or the flash of a neon sign on a foggy night. Drive. Just that one word.

With the silent echo of that one word rattling around inside his brain like a steel ball in a cage, Wade stood up, holding Zoe's hand, and drew her up to him.

"Get your stuff."

"What? You've got to be kidding me."

Wade shook his head. "No joke, get your stuff, we're leavin'."

"You can't just come in here and rescue me on a white horse! I don't need your damn rescuing, every time I get involved with you I get hurt!" Zoe whined.

"So do I, doc, every damn time, but I keep comin' back for more. You said you had to get out ASAP, well, you won't get any ASAPer than this."

"ASAPer?" Zoe started to giggle. "Please ASAPer than your neighbor on this RSVP, you too can be an RSVPer." Her giggle was bubbling over into full blown laughter.

Wade just sighed. "You have any bags or anything? Boxes? Do you have a car?"

"Make sure you RSVP ASAP using the SOP or the POV will be SOL!" Zoe dissolved in gales of laughter. Wade just waited until she straightened up again and drawn a couple of deep breaths before stepping up to her, taking her by those tiny shoulders, and looking into her eyes.

"Do you have a car?" Wade repeated

Zoe nodded. "In the driveway."

"OK, get your stuff, we're leavin'. Where's your phone?"

Zoe looked puzzled and swiveled her head around the room, but didn't seem able to focus on what she was seeing. Then she stopped as her eyes snapped back into focus.

"Purse. Kitchen."

Wade looked around helplessly until Zoe headed off that way. She found her purse on the counter, dug out her phone, and turned to hand it to Wade, who had followed her. He held up both his hands.

"Do you have your old hospital's number in there still?" Wade asked. Zoe nodded. "I need to call Earl." She nodded again and dialed a couple of numbers. She handed Wade the phone.

"Just ask for Earl Kinsella's room."

He did, and a minute later Earl picked up.

"Hello?"

"Earl, it's Wade. Get dressed, we're leavin' as soon as I get there, probably a couple of hours or so. I'll meet you at the car."

"What time is it?" Earl said groggily.

"Never mind that, just be ready to go," Wade said and hung up. He turned to Zoe. "Pack up what you want to keep, you're not coming back."

Zoe got that stunned-calf look again. Wade stepped up, held both her shoulders softly, and made sure they made eye contact.

"We need to go now, this isn't the place for you."

Zoe hesitated a moment, then nodded and turned toward the basement. Wade watched her closely, and suddenly had a vision of her falling down the stairs in a stupor, so he skipped ahead of her toward the door he presumed she was headed to.

"What's down here?" Wade asked nervously, gesturing towards the door.

Zoe stopped and blinked. "The basement, with lots and lots of empty boxes."

"Why don't you let me handle that, I haven't been drinking, I'll just run downstairs and throw 'em up to you, how's that?" Wade said as he opened the door and headed down the stairs without waiting for a reply.

"K." Zoe said as she stood in place in the kitchen, humming a complex little melody that she hadn't been able to get out of her head for a couple of days now, bobbing her head gently to the rhythm, so she was quite startled when the first box came flying up from the basement into the kitchen, and just as startled by the second, and the third.

"How many do you think we need?" Wade spoke loudly from the basement.

"Ah," Zoe shrugged, "three more?"

"Watch out!" Three more boxes appeared in rapid succession in the kitchen, then Wade appeared and closed the basement door.

"This gonna be enough?" Wade asked skeptically, but Zoe just shrugged and grabbed a box.

Zoe went back to the living room, where she put her CDs, her mp3, the dock, some headphones and earbuds into the box. It was about half full.

"That takes care of downstairs," Zoe said. She picked up the box and carried it over to the front door, set it down, and started to trudge wearily upstairs. Wade grabbed the rest of the boxes as best he could and scurried over to the stairs so he could follow her closely in case she was wobbly. He couldn't help but notice she wasn't wearing any underwear under the flannel shirt as he followed her up the stairs, and somewhere back in his lizard brain there was a reaction.

When they got to the top of the stairs, Zoe proceeded straight ahead to the last bedroom on the right; Wade stopped and dropped the boxes at the bathroom on the left. He took a box, went into the bathroom and scooped everything he found on the counter into it, opened the cabinet and found two towels, which he stuffed into the box as padding. He took a look around, apparently that was it.

When Wade got out to the hall, he found Zoe already walking back carrying a half full box, wearing oversize gray sweat pants and a funky orange sweater that was two sizes too big over the flannel. She was still barefoot. As she walked by Wade, he glanced into the box…jewelry, knick-knacks, one picture, kind of fuzzy. No clothes.

"That's it for upstairs," Zoe said as she set down the box at the head of the stairs.

Wade set his box down next to hers. "Are you sure?"

Zoe nodded.

Just to make sure, Wade walked down to the last bedroom on the right and went in. There was a walk-in closet across the room and to his left, with the door open, and all he could see from the door was row after row of black dresses, pantsuits, skirts, and jackets. The mattress and box spring were on the floor, the bedding disheveled but new. A few toiletries scattered over a vanity to his right, with a big mirror over a polished maple surface. To his immediate left was the dresser, a couple of drawers slightly open, the top drawer showing black underwear, panties and bras, the third one flashing a little color, a red and white stripey thing, maybe a sweater.

"You don't want anything else?" Wade called down the hallway.

"No."

Wade took a last look around, shrugged, and went back down the hall. He picked up both boxes and went down ahead of Zoe.

"Just hang on to the rail," Wade said softly.

"I'm not ten, Wade," Zoe snapped back, and they made it to the bottom.

"Car's in the driveway?" Wade asked as he set down the boxes.

Zoe bobbed her head silently as she walked over to the closet and got her winter coat. She slipped it on, reached into the front pocket and drew out the car keys, which she handed to Wade. He didn't know what to expect from the weather, but he found it had stopped raining and there was just a little bit of ground fog here and there, still unseasonably warm. He opened the trunk, ran back to the house for the boxes, and made it back to the car in one trip. He put the box with the CDs in the back seat.

When Wade turned around to go back to the house, he saw Zoe standing forlornly in the doorway, holding a half gallon jug of vodka. She started walking toward the car.

"That stays here," Wade said, pointing to the jug.

"It's mine," Zoe said fiercely.

Wade sighed. He decided he didn't really want to have this fight, right now, so he just turned away, opened the driver's side door, and got in.

"Make sure to close up," Wade called as he started the car and began to look over the controls. He had never driven a Mercedes before and had to find the lights and wipers.

"Oh, yeah," Zoe muttered as she spun around, went back to the front door and pulled it shut. She came back to the car and, much to Wade's surprise, she climbed in the back seat and closed the door.

"Let's hit the road," Zoe said.

Wade buckled in, pulled out, followed the signs to the Long Island Expressway, got in the far left lane, and punched it. Two things struck Wade as he drove into the city…the new Mercedes was almost as good as his 40-year old Chevelle SS, and for some reason the roads were practically empty. Zoe was pretty quiet in the back seat, sometimes looking through the CDs as if to find the appropriate soundtrack for escaping from hell, other times mumbling to herself. At one point Zoe scrambled over to the passenger side, got the window down, and vomited outside the car. Wade wondered how much got on the car, and how much was strewn across miles of highway, since they were doing about 80. Zoe managed to get back inside the car and, using a roll of paper towels she had in the back seat, cleaned herself up a bit.

Thanks to Zoe's mumbled directions, they made to the hospital in near-record time, and when they pulled into long-term parking, they found Earl and Enzo waiting by Wade's car.

"Congratulations," Dr. Finelli said to Wade with a big smile. Wade just shook his head in bewilderment as he got out of the car. "I told Earl he was checking out AMA," Zoe giggled softly from the back seat and Dr. Finelli leaned over a bit and waved, "hey, Dr. Hart," then stood back up and looked Wade in the eye, "and he said I shouldn't worry, his new daughter-in-law is a doctor, so…" Enzo smiled and shrugged.

Wade took a deep breath. "Get in the car, Earl."

Earl smiled and waved at them both as he walked over to the Chevy and got in the passenger side.

"He gonna be OK?" Wade asked.

Enzo shrugged. "In the short run, yes, if he takes his anti-biotics and gets plenty of fluids, stays warm, that kind of thing. He'll probably sleep most of the way to Alabama, if that's what you're thinking of doing."

Wade nodded.

"Neither one of them are going to be able to drive," Enzo said, gesturing between Earl, who was huddling up inside his parka in the Chevy, and Zoe, who was huddling up inside her layers of clothing in the back of the Mercedes.

Wade nodded again, somewhat grimly.

"Need some help?"

Wade just laughed out loud.

"OK, pop the trunk, I'll move that, you move Zoe, and I'll get what's left in the back seat."

They moved, and within five minutes everything was in the Chevy and set to go.

Enzo handed Wade some pill bottles. "These are for Earl, these are for you. These will make you calm, these will keep you awake. DO NOT confuse the two. Also got a scrip there for your dad's pot, so that's all square."

Wade's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped. "My dad's pot?"

"Yeah, there is no medical marijuana in Alabama, there is in New York, he says he takes it for his alcoholism and depression…seems to work…he never told you, did he? Oh, sorry about letting that cat out of the bag."

Wade took another deep breath, put his hands on his hips, and peered skyward.

"Yeah, that's news to me," Wade finally said, straightening up.

"Well, actually," Enzo went on, "he's doing all right, considering, but I'm afraid some day he'll pay the price."

The two men just stood there in silence for a few moments then turned to each other at the same time. Wade stuck out his hand.

"Thanks. For everything."

Enzo took Wade's hand but didn't dare squeeze it for fear of crushing it. "You're welcome. Good luck."

Wade nodded again, walked around to the drivers side of the car, got in, and within a few minutes they were on I-95 headed south.

Wade sat forward as he drove, arching his back and pushing his shoulder blades back to stretch the muscles. It felt good to be back behind the wheel of his car. Zoe was lying down in the backseat mumbling and singing to herself, Earl was huddled in his parka in the passenger seat, only gradually getting warmer.

"I think we were only outdoors for about ten minutes waitin' for you, but I'm 'bout froze to death," Earl shivered.

Wade reached into his pocket and drew out the scrip for marijuana, holding it toward Earl. "Doc gave me this for you."

As Earl reached for it, Wade snatched it back. "When were you gonna tell me? Were you going to tell me?"

"Yeah, I was gonna tell you someday," Earl said defensively, "after, you know, maybe you'd seen what a difference it makes. For me, anyway," Earl hastened to add as Wade cast him a look.

Wade sighed, this was another battle he didn't want to have right now, and he handed over the scrip. Seems like I'm building up a lot of battles for later, thought Wade.

"Speaking of that," said Earl as he pulled out a baggie and a corn cob pipe, which he proceeded to stuff with his fingers and light with a Bic.

"Oh my God, Earl, roll down the window" Wade almost yelled in a panic. "I don't want that in my car!"

"Can I have some of that?" Zoe said, sitting up straight in the back seat.

"Sure," said Earl as he passed her the pipe and the lighter.

Wade just gritted his teeth and scanned anxiously around in every direction, looking for signs of police. Here they were, driving down the interstate, with prescription and non-prescription drugs, perhaps even an open bottle of vodka (Wade wasn't sure if that had been transferred from the Mercedes or not), and the smell of pot in the air. It was a recipe for disaster. Zoe and Earl passed the pipe back and forth several times until it was empty, and they both relaxed. Wade did not.

Wade bore on through the night, and when they got to Washington he was starting to drift so he took one of those pills Enzo had given him. He perked right up. When they got to the interstate turnoff to Atlanta, Earl and Zoe smoked a bowl while Wade gritted his teeth and said nothing, then Zoe took a hit off the vodka bottle (well, thought Wade, at least that settles that question), and they played some music that no one could agree on, three people, all altered in their own peculiar way. Wade drove on into the darkness.

At last they approached the turnoff to Mobile, at last they reached Mobile Bay as the sun began to come up, and with almost the last ounce of strength he possessed, Wade piloted his car to his father's doorstep, where he got out to help Earl up the steps and inside. Zoe appeared to be asleep in the back seat.

When they got to the front door, Earl, who was still wearing his winter parka, turned to his son.

"I can get inside, put myself to bed, I'm really beat. You take care of that pretty doctor right now, I think maybe she could take care of you someday too."

Wade smiled wearily.

"Is thinkin' your strong suit?"

Earl shrugged. "It's my only suit." He smiled a little and turned to go.

"Thanks, dad."

Earl stopped dead in his tracks for a moment, then continued on through his front door. "You're welcome, son."

Wade got back to the car and behind the wheel. He drove carefully and quietly to the plantation, where he pulled up by the side of the house and turned the car off. The sun was fully up by now, the humid air was ripening. Wade got out of the car and walked around back to get to the passenger door, where he was met by a smiling Lavon.

"Glad to see you man! How can I help?"

"Help me open some doors so I can get Zoe out of the back seat and upstairs to your guest room," Wade said as he slid her out of the back seat and whisked her upstairs. As he was tucking her in, Lavon appeared in the doorway.

"What's goin' on, is she all right?" Lavon asked, clearly worried.

"She'll be OK now, I think," said Wade as he brushed a lock of her hair off her forehead. "But she'll need a lot of rest, some good food for a change. I wanna clean up the carriage house a little before she comes over, probably full of dust and…oh, I don't know, possums."

"Dust, probably, possums, no," Lavon said with a chuckle.

"And I need some rest, too, I've been driving since…" Wade waved his arms around helplessly, "…yesterday, some time."

Lavon nodded as Wade started out.

"So, where you goin'?"

"Rammer Jammer," was Wade's reply.

"First?" Lavon asked, suddenly unsure what Wade meant and expecting him to head to the gatehouse to crash. Wade just waved his arms and shook his head as he walked out the door.

A few minutes later Wade pulled up to the side of the Rammer Jammer and parked, turned off the engine, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then he got out of the car, closed the door solidly, and walked inside during the breakfast rush. He headed straight for the kitchen and the steps leading up to his apartment. Lemon intercepted him at the end of the bar with an inquiring look.

"Well?"

Wade sighed. Another battle to avoid. "Zoe is at the plantation, Earl is back home, and I'm tired and want to get some sleep."

"So, she's back…for good?" Lemon's expression was hard to read; anger, frustration, pleasure, and annoyance, but Wade was too tired to go any further.

"We'll see," Wade said as he walked past her to the stairs, which he then climbed and disappeared into his lair.

Day turned into night, and Wade was not seen. That night, when the bar closed, Lemon was seen leaving the Rammer Jammer carrying a bottle of whiskey. She was seen by Sgt. Jeffries, who had been finding it increasingly difficult to sleep over the past few years and so had taken to walking around town after dark, alone with his memories. Sgt. Jeffries also noted appreciatively that Lemon was carrying a bottle of Wild Turkey. Thinking this was unusual behavior, he followed the tall blonde woman, staying in the shadows and quiet as a church mouse, until she came to the town cemetery. She went in, but the sergeant did not, he just waited in the shadows until she came out again a few minutes later, without the bottle. Assuming that the most interesting part of the evening was over, he let her go and debated whether or not to go into the cemetery and collect the bottle, but since it was a dark night with only a crescent moon, he decided daylight might be a better time to collect it, so he went home. Needless to say, when he went back the next morning the empty bottle was found sitting by the gypsy's grave.

A/N - This is not the end, in case anyone is confused. There will be two more chapters.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Hart of Dixie own I not.

Ch. 14

Zoe awoke to the smell of flowers drifting in with the soft breeze stirring the curtains in her room. The sun was up, its beams streaking across the carpet and the comforter under which she had been sleeping. The sheets were fresh and clean, the bed soft but definitely not her own. She turned her eyes toward the windows, but they gave no clue as to where she was, only that it was warm and sunny with a light breeze…but that smell, she knew that smell. The faintest scent of flowers. She must be in Alabama.

Zoe sat up straight in bed. If this was Alabama, this was also most likely the plantation, although she didn't recognize the room, so she threw back the covers and got out of bed. The first thing she noticed was she wasn't wearing any shoes. The next thing she noticed was she wasn't wearing any underwear either, just a baggy old pair of sweatpants she'd found somewhere, and her secret flannel. Zoe figured this was probably good enough to go around Lavon's house with, so she gently made her way downstairs.

Zoe felt awful once she started to move. It was as if she had been hung up in a bag on a tree and beaten with sticks, so that the aches and pains seemed perfectly random. At the same time there was a numbness to the pains, as if her muscles had become accustomed to the beatings and the threshold for actual pain had been raised. Most of her pain was background noise.

Once Zoe got down to the kitchen, she found a clock which told her it was 1, and since the sun was shining brightly it was 1 in the afternoon. She needed a couple of Tylenol and a cup of coffee, but right now she didn't feel capable of making either for herself, she'd have to go back upstairs for the Tylenol, those stairs again, and things had been re-arranged in the kitchen a little and she wasn't sure where the coffee was any more, so she staggered around the house until she found a pair of flip flops that fit her and she headed out to the Rammer Jammer, stopping only to tie her hair back in a rough ponytail. She didn't know where her hair brush was.

As Zoe walked down the street to the Rammer Jammer, she filled her lungs with the scent that woke her, the faintest hint of something floral and sweet with just the slightest salty tang of the Gulf air that she had always associated with Bluebell. She remembered something she heard in med school, that smell can trigger the most powerful and specific memories of all the senses. She wasn't sure of that, she was still pretty numb and achy, but that scent reminded her of…so many things. She began to walk slower, and she could feel herself start to relax. She still felt like she had been hit by a bus, but it had been so long since she had felt the sun on her face that just feeling its warmth and breathing in deeply couldn't help but make her feel a little better.

Zoe tried remembering how she got here, but was coming up mostly empty. She could remember fragments, but nothing that made much sense. She remembered Neil, what he said when he left, and then she remembered dancing, drinking and dancing, and there was Wade somehow, and Earl, and rain, lots and lots of rain. And movement. In a car. Not much else.

Zoe got to the Rammer Jammer, squared her little shoulders, and walked in, expecting the worst.

Zoe was greeted by Tom Long, who was on his way out. "Hey, Dr. Hart, nice to see you! Like your new shirt." He was through the door and gone.

Zoe shuffled up to the bar and plopped down on a stool. Lemon appeared in front of her.

"Is that what they are wearing in New York these days? You look like a migrant farm worker."

"It's nice to see you too, Lemon, this is refugee chic, pretty much what the Red Cross hands out after a disaster. Sooner or later in this world, Lemon, we are all going to be refugees, I'm just being fashion-forward. At least on me it looks good. Can I get a cup of coffee and a couple…no, make it three Tylenol, I think Wade used to keep it…"

"I know where Wade keeps it!" snapped Lemon, who got Zoe her coffee before disappearing out back, returning a moment later with the bottle and a glass of water. She set them down in front of Zoe and looked at her like a kitten looks at a ball of yarn.

"Is Wade going to be happy you're back?" Lemon finally asked.

"I don't know, I hope so," Zoe said, sipping her coffee.

"You're going to need something on that stomach," Lemon said as she turned her head to the kitchen, "Shanetta, can you make us some plain white toast, easy on the butter," then she turned back to Zoe.

"I, personally, could not care less if you are back or not, but Wade went up there to get you. Twice. He even said he wasn't going to get you back, but I for one didn't believe a word of it. He wanted you back, and went to hell and back to get you. There are women who would change places with you in a heartbeat just to be loved the way Wade loves you. You had better tell him you love him too or I swear I will hunt you down and feed you into a wood chipper!" With that, Lemon turned to the window, picked up Zoe's toast, set it down in front of her, and left.

Zoe took the pills, washed them down with water, and took a sip of her coffee. She took a bite of toast, it tasted pretty good so she took another. A little more coffee. Maybe a little more to eat. Then, perhaps, she could think of what to do next. While Zoe was doing that, although mostly she was just sitting and sipping her coffee, Lemon re-appeared in front of her with a plate of scrambled eggs and grits. Lemon also carried a small jar of syrup.

"Put the maple syrup on the grits, it'll taste good and help settle your stomach."

Zoe just nodded her appreciation as she began to eat. As she ate, she began to remember things from yesterday, as if the food was fuel for her memory. It was Wade; he showed up at her doorstep, she didn't dream him. Wade must have driven her back.

Once Zoe had finished her eggs, grits, and coffee, she felt somewhat refreshed, a little more ready to face whatever it was she had to face, although still pretty uncertain what questions to ask. Lemon came over to clear Zoe's dishes.

"Have you seen Wade today?" Zoe asked.

Lemon nodded casually. "He opened this morning, but he left around ten, said he had something to do."

"Do you know where he is?" Zoe asked again.

"The carriage house, I think," Lemon said even more casually, if that was possible.

"OK," Zoe stood up, "I guess that's where I'm headed, if I don't make it in a week, alert the National Guard."

"Will do," Lemon said cheerfully as she watched Zoe leave the Rammer Jammer, but her smile disappeared when Zoe did, and Shanetta was sure she heard Lemon mutter 'at least Wade will be happy' as she stormed back to the office and closed the door gently.

Zoe, meanwhile, started walking up the road toward the plantation. As she skirted the town square, she saw Delma and Big Ethel on the bench in the shade. They both turned to her, smiled and waved. Zoe waved back, puzzled. Sunshine, smiling faces? This was so different from what she had experienced only, what, yesterday…the day before that? Rain, fog, cold people. Just walking up this street seemed unreal. And the heat, she hadn't felt this warm from the sun in ages. She flapped her flannel shirt, it was getting so hot, unbuttoned the top button and re-rolled up the sleeves to give her more air. Tom Long, she thought, who hadn't seen her in months, knew this was a new shirt for her. Were all her secrets as transparent, she wondered? Or was it just Bluebell, where people took the time to notice?

As Zoe walked in the sunshine, more and more of the recent past began to come to the surface. She remembered the sense of worthlessness when Neil swept her away like yesterday's fish wrapper, and the deep sense of despair when she realized she didn't care that much, that she had armored her heart so well that only her pride could be hurt. She remembered Wade appearing that night, and being angry that he hadn't been there sooner, angry that he'd let her leave. She remembered trying to punish him for it. None of it seemed right anymore. There was something else, too…

As Zoe walked through the gate at the plantation, the sun was high and at her back. The white of the house was enough to blind you if you looked directly at it. Zoe started around the main house and headed back, and her heart rate began to pick up. Mixing the unaccustomed heat of the noon time sun with her general numbness and increasing nervousness was starting to make Zoe dizzy. She stopped for a minute and closed her eyes, breathing deeply to try and regain whatever composure she could find. After a moment or two she felt better and forged ahead.

As Zoe approached the carriage house, she heard voices inside, and laughing, and then the snap of something, a towel or sheet maybe, and more words she couldn't make out. As if in a dream she glided up the stairs, through the front door, down the hall and into the sitting room slash bedroom. There she found Lavon, his arm still in a sling, sitting in one of the chairs, Annabeth was putting the finishing touches on making the bed, and Wade, who had his back to the door, was helping.

Lavon and Annabeth saw Zoe first, but her eyes were on Wade. The sun was shining through the window on his shoulder, there were golden streaks in his dirty blond hair that was a little too long right now, and as he stood here in his flannel, jeans, and work boots, his uniform, he looked so comfortable in his skin, in his place in the world. He was as firmly rooted in this place as a tree, Zoe realized, and like a tree he was growing here, steadfast but not rigid, and he could be trusted to do that, be Wade, because that is who he is, he could never pretend to be anyone else and had never tried.

"Big Z," Lavon nearly shouted as he surged out of his chair and ran over to give Zoe a one-armed hug, snapping her out of her reverie. Wade had turned around at the sound of her name and their eyes did not leave each other, which Lavon did not notice but Annabeth did.

"Zoe," Annabeth squeaked as she scurried around the bed and ran to give her a hug. "It's so wonderful to see you, we have a lot of catching up to do, but you know what, there's this thing that Lavon and I have to do this afternoon, so why don't we see you for dinner tonight?" Annabeth quickly patted Zoe's arm and sidestepped her, then gestured to Lavon to leave with her, now. They did, and Wade and Zoe were left alone.

"You brought me here?" Zoe asked. "I'm sorry, I don't remember much about yesterday."

"Day before yesterday," Wade corrected her gently. "You slept all day yesterday."

"Why here? Why would you bring me here?"

"Because I couldn't take care of you there."

"I can take care of myself, Wade."

"Yeah, you were doing real well when I showed up."

Zoe sighed and studied her toes for a few moments, then looked around the room. "You've been cleaning?"

"Yeah, dusting, vacuuming, scrub the tub, fresh linens, the works. Wanted it to be nice for you…if you decided to stay."

Zoe just kept looking at Wade, how the light struck his hair, how the green in his hazel eyes could be seen from across the room (or was that just her imagination?). She remembered that awful prom night, and how Wade was there for her when she turned to him, how she was comforted, how safe she felt, how perfect everything was at that moment, and how the possibility of perfection for every day after was within reach, because she was with him. She remembered that it had always been that way for them, that possibility was there, if she just had the courage. She began to remember something else.

"How did you find me?"

"I had help."

That answer wasn't much help to Zoe. "Was Earl with us?"

Wade nodded. "You remember smoking pot with Earl in my car?"

"Oh, my God, did I do that?" Zoe covered her mouth in embarrassment. Wade nodded again. "Oh, Wade, I am so so sorry…"

Wade held up his hands. "It's OK, it calmed you down enough so you didn't puke your guts out across all of the southern states. I've never seen anyone as drunk as you were then, and you just kept puttin' it away. You know that's no good for you, doc, we've talked about this already," Zoe opened her mouth as if to speak, but Wade gestured for her to be quiet, "it wasn't until I saw how empty that place was on Long Island that I realized how much I must have hurt you for you to endure that. I just had to get you out."

"I remember we argued," Zoe nodded her head.

"Yeah, for some reason you were pissed at me from the get-go, what was that all about?" Wade asked with a smile.

"That part I think I remember," Zoe said shame-facedly, "I was mad because I thought you should have been there sooner, and I was mad you let me go."

Wade opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.

"I'm also pretty sure I remember you saying you loved me," Zoe went on, holding eye contact with Wade again.

Wade smiled. "Old news, doc. I told you that a long time ago, I'll say it again now. I love you Zoe Hart, and I would do anything to make you happy."

"This could be construed as kidnapping," Zoe said with a twinkle in her eye.

Wade shrugged and held both his hands out at his side. "You're free to go any time you want."

"But you brought me here for a reason," Zoe pressed him.

"Zoe, you're testing my patience," Wade blurted out, using her given name which always got her attention, just like her mother used to get her attention by using all three names, "I brought you here because this is my home, and I couldn't take care of you in New York. You needed my help, and I needed you. Simple as that. I have it on good authority that thinking isn't my strong suit, so I can't give you a whole list of reasons, but I can give you this…a place to stay, for now, if you want it, Brick's still looking for a partner down at the practice, if you want it, and there's a man standing in front of you who is yours, if you want him."

Zoe could only stare at Wade as tears filled her eyes and she slowly walked toward him. She held out her arms, nodding her head, saying yes, she wanted him and wanted never to let go of him, and Wade held out his arms and Zoe settled into them like the mist settles on rolling hills in the early morning sun and they kissed. They began to fuse, to melt together, and Zoe pulled away for a moment.

"Yes, I do want you, I love you too Wade Kinsella," and in that moment all Zoe's doubts were erased, all her fears were conquered, all the questions had been asked and answered, and as their lips touched, tentatively at first and then more hungrily, Zoe knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she was home, because home is not so much a place as a state of mind that we share with those we love.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N - Thank you to everyone who has read this far, I had a blast writing this story for you, and a special thanks to everyone who took the time to write a review, you all have had very nice things to say. To those of you who read these stories but don't comment, please re-consider, even a quick 'love your story' can give a lift to a writer who just throws things out there and hopes you like it. I'm glad a lot of you liked the re-union in the last chapter, I was worried because there was a lot of pressure on that re-union and I didn't want to disappoint anyone. Thank you again everyone.

Disclaimer: Hart of Dixie own I not.

Ch. 15

"You say it was about here?" Zoe asked, sweeping her hand toward the water.

"No," Wade said as he paced off the distance and watched his feet, then stopped, looked around, and moved off at an angle to his right about six steps, stopped, and pointed down. "She was here." He glanced around again.

"See, anybody who camps here will use pretty much this spot, because of the dugout fireplace with stones. Earl says his daddy dug it out and made the fireplace around it 'cause he always loved this cove for fishin'. Anybody can use it, only the locals even know it's here. I had my tent pretty close to the fire, she sat right there," Wade pointed again.

"But you were pretty drunk," Zoe asked with a smile.

"You're missing the point, Zoe," Wade said, his voice rising a little in exasperation, "she sat there and talked to me sure as you are standing there now. I know what I know."

"It's OK, Wade," Zoe said with a laugh and her hands, as if to a small child, "I believe you, I know better than to bet against you when you are positive like this…"

"It's all right," Wade said in a quiet voice, "I didn't believe it at first myself, although when it was happening it was real, and I've been drunk before so I know what that's like and this wasn't like that at all, so it was…something else."

Zoe nodded firmly. "If you say it happened, it happened, end of story. You are a terrible liar, Wade Kinsella, which nowadays works in your favor," they both smiled at each other, "it's just that I am a woman of science, Wade, so I'm always going to be skeptical, but in this case I'm open to the possibility." They both smiled at each other again and Zoe walked over and held out her hand, which Wade took as if they were attached by magnets, and drew them together. They kissed, their lips meshing and parting briefly to allow their tongues to caress each other, lips tasting of plums to Wade, lips tasting of cinnamon to Zoe, then closing gently and pulling away breathless. Zoe looked up at Wade.

"So why did you bring me here at sunset?" she whispered.

Wade smiled down at her and lowered his head until their foreheads touched. "You've been asking me about 'you can't stop the magic'. I've been thinkin' about that…"

"You, think?" Zoe laughed, and Wade laughed with her.

"Yeah, I have, believe it or not," Wade went on, "and one thing I've been thinkin' is part of that magic is right here. We should be able to see the evening star right over there," he pointed across the cove, "in a few minutes." Zoe pivoted in place inside Wade's arms, and once she was facing out she relaxed back into him so he could hold her tighter. Also, he kept her warm. Once the sun went down, the cold came on quickly, since it wasn't full-on spring yet. They waited together, silently, accompanied by the sounds of birds, as the sky faded and the yellows and oranges retreated. Gradually the evening star appeared as the colors drained from the sky, and Wade and Zoe just quietly stood and watched, fitted together like two forks in a drawer, until it got so dark Wade broke away, reluctantly, and they turned to go back to the car, still holding hands. The birds had gone to bed now, and they could hear the sighing of the wind in the pines. As they walked along in the dark, Zoe suddenly cocked her head.

"Did you hear that?" Zoe asked, breaking contact with Wade's hand.

"Hear what?" Wade replied.

Zoe stopped for a moment and cast her eyes around, then 'shh'ed' Wade when he started to ask her what's wrong. After a minute she shook her head and moved on.

"Must be the wind," Zoe said as they walked up the little remaining slope to the car, again hand in hand, where they got in and drove back to town.

When they got to the Rammer Jammer, they found Lavon and Annabeth already ensconced at a corner table near the little stage. It was Monday, and open mic night at the Rammer Jammer, and the place was beginning to fill up. In the few short weeks since Wade and Lemon started it, it had become a popular hangout on a slow night, and a financial success. Anyone with any talent whatsoever was encouraged to get up on stage, and if you were from Bluebell, you were guaranteed a warm reception, and if you were actually good at what you did, which a surprising number of locals were, then you would get a standing ovation. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and there were fewer problems on open mic night than other, similar sized crowds on other nights. Wade and Lemon agreed that it was the sense of community generated by the cheering-on of friends and neighbors that led to the harmony on those nights. Lemon wanted to call it 'RammerJammerStock', but Wade thought the whole '-stock' thing had been overdone and they should just stick with open mic night for now until something truly better came along. Lemon gave in because it was easier, but the wheels kept turning.

Once Wade and Zoe got settled at the table, and the waitress had taken their order and scurried off to the kitchen, Annabeth leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "She's cute, is she new?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Wade with a little grin, "someone else hires the waitresses."

All three of them stopped what they were doing, turned to Wade and gave him a big smile.

"Sheesh, hire just one underage waitress, just one…" Wade shook his head in exasperation, although he had to keep his head down to suppress the widening grin on his face.

Lavon, who was now without a sling for his shoulder, although it was still a little tender and he did favor it some, couldn't suppress it any longer and laughed out loud.

"That's right, one was all it took! You nearly sunk this ship before it even left the harbor!"

"Thank you Lavon, for reminding us all of that," Wade said as he absent-mindedly reached out and took Zoe's hand on the table. They glanced at each other and smiled. "Actually, Lemon and I have a deal, she hires front of the house, I hire back of the house, meshes pretty good so far."

"So you and Lemon are working well together," Lavon said it more as a statement than a question as the waitress returned with their drinks, Jim Beam on the rocks with a twist for Lavon, one of those red fruity frothy drinks they serve in tall flute glasses with a parasol and a straw with rum in it for Annabeth, and seltzer and lime for Wade and Zoe.

"We're gonna go chem-free for a while, see what that's like," Zoe said with a smile, stealing a sidelong look at Wade before raising her glass in the air over the middle of the table. "To friends!"

"To friends!" They all raised their glasses and drank.

"So," Lavon went on, turning to Wade, "speakin' of chem-free, how you doin' on your meds?"

"Good, good," Wade smiled and nodded, "almost off everything, and the funny thing is, now that I know what it's like to wake up every day clear headed, no headaches, no body aches, I kind of like it…and then of course there's Zoe." Without even looking at each they inched their chairs closer together so their shoulders could touch.

"I have been known to go overboard," Zoe said ruefully, looking from Annabeth to Lavon.

"No, really?" They said at the same time, and then laughed.

"Yeah, but with Wade…" Zoe turned her soft brown eyes to him, "…I just know everything will be all right. He can…" Zoe seemed at a loss for words as her free hand circled in the air.

"Keep the genie in the bottle?" Wade offered with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, that's it," Zoe nodded and eyed him closely. "When did you get so good with words?"

"Since I met you, doc," Wade said softly as their heads came together and they stole a quick kiss, which Annabeth found cute and Lavon found fodder for comment.

"Get a room!" Lavon scoffed (although in his heart of hearts, if you really pressed him, Lavon might, just might, admit he found it cute too) as he took a sip of bourbon.

With a huge smile on his face, Wade stood up. "Yeah, I can do that!" and he started to walk away. Zoe's eyes got huge and she turned and grabbed his arm.

"You can't be serious!" she gasped, until she saw the gentle humor in his eyes as he knelt down next to her.

"Listen, there's something I have to go do right now," Wade said in a low voice as he put her hand between both of his, balancing on his toes with his knees bent, "but I'll see you in a few minutes, OK?" He leaned forward a bit and they kissed, and he stood up and disappeared.

Zoe sat up straight and looked at her friends with a questioning look but they both shook their heads. Annabeth took a sip of her drink.

"So Zoe, you didn't do any shopping while you were in New York, I thought you would've brought back bags of new stuff."

"Yeah, I guess I would have expected that too," Zoe said with a wan little grin as she sipped her seltzer, "but no, I really didn't do any shopping. For some reason it just didn't have the same appeal as it used to." Again she started waving her free hand in a circular motion. "It's hard to explain."

Annabeth nodded as if she understood, but she found it hard to imagine anything could be so psychologically dislocating as to make shopping not worth the effort.

The waitress brought their food, a cheeseburger and fries for Zoe, a huge plate of nachos for Lavon and Annabeth.

"So where'd you guys go?" Lavon asked before popping a cheese drenched nacho into his mouth.

Zoe nodded, her mouth full of burger. After she chewed and swallowed she said, "Phillips Lake, Wade wanted to show me where he met Clarissa."

"You know," Lavon said, holding a dripping nacho in front of him, seemingly forgotten, "I've heard the old-timers talk about the Gray Lady, if you bring her a present and ask her for help, and she's in the mood, she'll grant you your heart's desire." Lavon noticed the dripping cheese and swung it toward his face just in time, catching the now-falling glob of cheese with his tongue before the chip disappeared in his mouth. "I have also heard…" here Lavon scooped up some more cheese with another chip, "…that among the ladies of Bluebell," here he looked at Annabeth and smiled, "there is a similar legend about the gypsy woman and her grave up at the town cemetery. That usually involves gettin' a husband, but…" He shrugged and expertly popped another nacho. There wasn't a trace of cheese on the table in front of him.

Zoe nodded, still devouring the cheeseburger which she was thinking could become her favorite food on earth, but eventually she managed to finish chewing and swallowed.

"A lot of these folk tales have their basis in fact, although sometimes it can be hard to find, and there is usually a scientific explanation for any paranormal phenomena. I will tell you what I told Wade, though, I am open to the possibility."

"Soooo," Annabeth stretched out the word, scrunched up one eye and did that little endearing grimace Lavon found so cute, "have you and Wade discussed…"

"Yes," Zoe smiled broadly.

"You mean…" Annabeth squeaked as her finger started making mad geometric patterns on the table, which was meant to include those present and not present.

"Yes," Zoe beamed. "I never asked, he told me. Everything. What happened and most especially what didn't happen. I've only just started telling him about me, but Wade says it doesn't really matter, he loves me and that isn't going to change. He says we shouldn't dwell on our failures, he says if he'd done that…anyway, I'm not sure we still don't have things to learn from our failures, we'll see…" Zoe shrugged, sipping her seltzer.

"But you do love him, right?" Annabeth leaned forward toward Zoe as if to emphasize the importance of the question, which of course did not need emphasis. Lavon leaned in as well.

Zoe laughed out loud, sat back in her wooden seat until she slid down and put her neck on the top of the curved spine of the back of the chair. She stared at the ceiling for a moment with a huge smile on her face and pumped her right hand in the air.

"Hell yeah!" she said in her best Southern drawl and she laughed again, as did Lavon and Annabeth, who now thought, and perhaps even justifiably so, that they no longer had to worry about their friends, they had found each other at last.

Which served as a perfect introduction to Wade, who at that moment bounded onto the little stage and stood at the center mic, wearing jeans, workboots, a tank top, his medallion, and his aviator shades.

"Thanks for comin' everyone, welcome to our first GatorAid…" he waited a beat, "…gators need your help." Fully expecting the joke to fall flat, Wade was surprised as a ripple of laughter went through the room, so he kept on, "reptile contributions accepted at the door." For some reason the audience went with him and laughed uproariously. Wade just looked at the table with Zoe, Lavon, and Annabeth, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say 'I got this', and he went on, "let me introduce to you the GatorAiders…" Wade gestured off to the side of the stage, where the drummer and bass player from several of his bands came on and readied themselves. Wade looked around the packed house. "Looks like we're gonna have some fun tonight!" And everyone cheered. "We have a special treat for you tonight," more cheering, "we have managed to persuade her to take some precious time away from her other job of rockin' the free world to join us here tonight, for one night only…" Wade's voice had reached a crescendo as he turned to the side of the stage, "let's give a great big Bluebell welcome to Ms. Roxie Rumley!" And Lemon bounded onto the stage wearing a short denim skirt, cowboy boots, a loose white blouse under a fringe vest, she had her hair combed out and it was long and wavy, and she was wearing identical sunglasses to Wade, she was carrying maracas, and BAM they were into the opening chords of Buddy Holly's 'Not Fade Away' and the crowd went WILD.

It was a packed house and everybody was whoopin' hollerin' and dancin', wavin' their arms in the air, which of course drove the band crazy, which in turn amped up the crowd, so when the band got to the crescendo, they barely had enough time to take a breath before the crowd erupted, stompin' their feet and cheerin' for 'more, more', so Wade shrugged, put his slide on his little finger, and played some snarling bluesy chords and without missing a beat they hit the afterburner with 'Who Do You Love' with just Wade on slide guitar and Lemon on maracas, and she would occasionally step forward and screech melodically into the other stand-up mic in a sound only Lemon Breeland could make, but it all meshed perfectly with Wade's country growl vocals which were completely unintelligible but definitely emphatic with the snarling slide guitar underscoring it all, and the beat had just caught everybody and there was no one, sitting or standing, who was not moving, and when they came to the crescendo it was a crashing close they just nailed, more whoopin' and hollerin', and then there was a collective sigh in the room and, smokers and non-smokers alike, everyone thought it was time for a cigarette.

Wade walked over to his seat, plopped down, too off his shades, and gave Zoe his million dollar smile. "So, what did you think?"

"Wow," Zoe laughed, practically throwing off sparks, "that was fantastic, here…" she reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief, which she shook out and used to mop Wade's forehead, "…you must be so hot…you are so hot," she laughed as she leaned in for a kiss, in which her tongue stole all around Wade's lips because she had become very attached to cinnamon, then sat back and beamed at him.

Lemon joined them, equally sweaty and out of breath. She also sat down heavily and pulled off her shades, at the same time a drink appeared in front of her courtesy of the newest waiter, a handsome young college boy just home on break before finals. Lemon gave him a warm smile, so warm he almost felt like melting away into his shoes, before she turned to the others and took a pull on her drink.

"So, how were we?" Lemon looked at each of them respectively. Annabeth, noticing how wet Lemon was after performing, dug through her purse and came up with a hanky, which she handed to her across the table. Lemon mouthed 'thank you' and took it, drying herself off a bit.

"All I can say is wow, Lemon," Lavon said, shaking his head in amazement. "I had no idea you could sing like that!"

"I can't, but Roxie Rumley can," Lemon said with a grin, "all she needs is enough lubrication," and she picked up her drink and took another pull.

"So, did you guys do a lot of practicing?" asked Zoe, "because," she looked at Wade with a mischievous grin, "I don't remember you rehearsing a lot."

"Nope," Lemon shook her head vigorously, "no rehearsals, we just go out there and DO it."

Wade smiled, "Yeah, Lemon has to get just drunk enough to go on stage, but not so drunk that she can't do what she needs to do. It's a delicate balancing act."

"Damn straight," Lemon bounced her head up and down, took a hit off her drink, set it down, then scooted her chair forward and put her elbows on the table. "So, Dr. Hart, has Wade told you…?"

"Yes, he has."

"But you don't even…"

"Yes I do."

"So you know all about…"

"Yes I do."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"No. And you know why, Lemon?"

"Why?"

"Because he said you were bony."

Lemon stared at Zoe for what seemed like a minute, without expression, then blinked twice and sat back in her chair, sighing heavily.

"I hadn't even decided yet how I was going to use that information," Lemon shook her head and drained her drink.

"I thought it best that in this case you were disarmed," Wade said with an apologetic grin.

Lavon turned to Annabeth and whispered, "What are they talking about?"

Annabeth brought her head up to Lavon's ear and whispered, "Tell you later."

"Well, anyway, I have a date and although it's been lovely chatting with you, I must be off to my other engagement," Lemon stood up and prepared to leave. "Annabeth, Lavon, Wade, Zoe, it's been…exhilarating..."

Lemon walked up to the front door where she grabbed her overcoat and met Sgt. Jeffries, who had been waiting for the last few minutes near the front door, as if uncertain about coming in. Lemon stopped to talk to him, she tilted her head prettily and touched his arm, then leaned in and said what some later thought sounded like 'did you bring it' or something like that, and he nodded and patted his breast pocket and smiled. Lemon then gave him her million dollar smile, linked arms with the sergeant (retired), and left the Rammer Jammer, just passing Earl Kinsella, who was coming into the bar, and they exchanged knowing looks before going their separate ways.

Earl came over and sat in the seat Lemon had just vacated. "Hi Zoe," Earl said shyly.

"Hi, Earl," Zoe smiled warmly, touching his arm. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, more importantly, how are you? You went out to Phillips Lake tonight?"

Zoe nodded uncertainly.

"Well?" Earl looked at her expectantly. Wade and Lavon were talking spring football and Annabeth was listening, so Earl had Zoe's undivided attention. "Anything happen? See anything…out of the ordinary? Hear something that, maybe, no one else heard?"

Zoe turned and gave Earl a good hard look.

"Don't matter what it was," Earl said, "besides I don't want to know, you'll know who to tell when the time comes." Zoe continued to look at him, her eyes beseeching Earl to go on. "If you think you heard something, you did. She had something to say to you, so don't question whether it's real or not. Open yourself to the possibilities." Earl smiled. "I just wanted to stop by and see, just in case," he patted Zoe's arm softly as he stood up, "gotta go, my ride's leavin' soon."

"Earl, don't go. Wade can give you a ride," Zoe said.

"Nah," Earl said with a smile and a shrug, "he'll wanna spend that time with you." He gave them all a little wave as he walked away. "See you later."

As Zoe watched Earl leave, she saw a different man than the one she had first met, the drunk who was being run over by empty boat trailers or threatening to jump off a roof. Now that Earl had quit drinking (so far, Wade always cautioned, although even Wade was showing signs of hope), Zoe could see a sweet old man whose vulnerabilities of the heart had almost killed him. A sweet old man very much like his son, the son who just may have saved him by being himself, the son who just may have saved her, Zoe thought, just by being himself, and there was no question, Zoe thought again, this time with amusement, that Wade could be trusted to be himself. And Earl was right, Zoe thought for a third time, she needed to be open to the possibilities.

A short time later, Wade and Zoe were getting ready to leave, although Lavon and Annabeth were pleading with them to stay for a little bit more.

"Gotta get our rest, take our vitamins, that sort of thing, work tomorrow," Wade said firmly as he waved goodbye and steered Zoe out the door.

Wade and Zoe walked down the starlit street, arm in arm, just strolling really, not really going anywhere, although they were walking in the general direction of the plantation. They could see their breath in the crystal clear night air, which for Wade was icy cold and for Zoe was refreshingly cool.

"Wait a minute," Zoe said, "weren't you supposed to close tonight?"

"Nah," Wade said, "Lemon said she'd close tonight."

"But what about her date?"

Wade laughed softly. "She didn't think that was going to take very long."

"What does that mean?" Zoe looked up to him with a grin.

"I don't know exactly," Wade smiled and shook his head, "I just overheard Lemon talking to someone, her 'date' is with Sgt. Jeffries, and it involves moonshine, that's all I know."

Something caught Zoe's attention out of the corner of her eye, so she stopped walking and turned around. Wade stopped and turned with her, and they both strained to see who it was who walking briskly down the road toward the Rammer Jammer. It wasn't until the figure passed under the only streetlight in that part of town that they saw the long blonde hair and realized it must be Lemon.

"Funny," Wade mused, "there isn't much up that road she came down but the cemetery."

Wade and Zoe turned back up the road to home, huddling close together as they walked in perfect rhythm. They walked along in silence for a minute or two before Zoe stopped again and turned to Wade.

"Clarissa spoke to me tonight," she said bluntly.

Wade just waited and watched her closely.

"Remember when I asked…" Zoe looked for Wade's eyes in the dark, she found them somehow and he nodded knowingly.

"She told me 'you are the magic'. I think what she means…" Zoe stopped, searching for something, "…you and me, us, we are the magic, you and I together." Zoe stopped talking and just pointed back and forth between the two of them.

"I think so too," said Wade as he put his hands around her waist and drew her in for a deep, delicious, plum-flavored kiss, gently, lovingly caressing her lips with his, which were deliciously cinnamon to Zoe, perhaps a little tart but with a spicy sweetness she had grown to love so much, this man in this town that had somehow become her home because he had brought her here.


End file.
